


Poisonous Things

by JamieAlDodgers



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Concussions, Deaf Character, Deaf Deceit, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: Can LYING Be Good??, Swearing, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, Threats of Violence, Violence, eventually, except the OC's, sympathetic everyone, who are ~plot devices~, with plans to cover the rest of the series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24913762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieAlDodgers/pseuds/JamieAlDodgers
Summary: Deceit had a problem. Or rather, he had five problems and one secret. A secret that said problems absolutely could not find out about.The thing was, Deceit was deaf. Or technically hard of hearing if you wanted to get specific about it. He wore hearing-aids, relied on lip-reading, even knew a passable amount of sign language. The whole shebang.And the others didn’t know – and never would if Deceit had anything to do with it.
Comments: 88
Kudos: 237





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is apparently what happens when I read that snakes are deaf, think to myself 'that'd make an interesting Janus fic', find out that it's actually a myth, and decide to write the fic anyway. Yup.
> 
> So, heed the tags (which will be updated as I go in case my ideas change... which is kind of likely knowing me), and I hope you enjoy :D

Deceit had a problem. Or rather, he had five problems and one secret. A secret that said problems absolutely could _not_ find out about.

Because that wouldn’t be a disaster _at all_.

Lying in bed, he could picture their reactions perfectly.

Logic, no doubt, would start to question if Deceit was capable of doing his job properly. As if he hadn’t been doing it just fine, _thank you very much_ , for over twenty-five years.

The Creativi-twits, as much as they might like to think of themselves as opposites, would both at best laugh and at worst find some way to use it against him.

Virgil… Virgil he wasn’t going to think about.

_Morality_ , perhaps the most insufferable of the lot of them, would probably try to… “coddle” him. Like a _child_. Deceit’s lip curled involuntarily. He was perfectly capable of looking after himself, and whatever pity-induced “help” that cardigan clad clod would offer was neither needed or wanted.

He was _fine_.

Deceit sighed and pushed himself up to sit cross legged at the top of his bed. That statement always left the acrid sweet taste of a lie on his tongue.

_It doesn’t make any sense!_ he thought, rubbing at his non-scaled temple. He really was fine! Better than fine! And, okay, sure, things didn’t _exactly_ go to plan yesterday in the theatre or during the following conversation… Thomas hadn’t listened to him in the end after all… but! But he’d still been revealed. The genie was out of the bottle and he wasn’t going back in and that was…

Good.

That was good.

Deceit gritted his teeth. If he said it enough maybe it’d stop making his scales itch.

‘Who am I kidding?’ Deceit muttered, throwing his duvet away from himself and getting to his feet.

He’d always been shit at lying to _himself,_ despite the irony of it.

No, what it was… was complicated. Stressful. Some might go so far as to say, an under-planned mess.

But if he wanted a proper say in how things went around here, Thomas actually being aware of his existence was kind of a necessary first step.

It was figuring out the other steps, whilst simultaneously keeping his secret as tightly under wraps as ever, that was causing him to lose sleep.

The thing was, Deceit was deaf. Or technically hard of hearing if you wanted to get specific about it. He wore hearing-aids, relied on lip-reading, even knew a passable amount of sign language (not that it was much use to him in a mindscape where no one else knew or used any). The whole shebang.

And the others didn’t know – and never would if Deceit had anything to do with it.

Crossing to his wardrobe, Deceit pulled out one of his yellow button-ups – the one with a black snake pattern along the bottom trim. He didn’t need his full getup today (his cloak was on point, he wouldn’t deny, but it wasn’t very practical for everyday activities), as he had no intention of going further than the dark sides common room. He’d never feel relaxed enough there to go fully informal, but when the only company he ever had anymore was Remus… well let’s just say considering the Duke’s _interesting_ choices of attire (including but not limited to a luminescent green skintight diver’s get-up, a female “sexy nurse”’s outfit, and his birthday suit) Deceit had allowed himself to dress down a little.

He flung the empty hanger onto his bed with a little more force than necessary.

Once upon a time, he’s considered telling Virgil his little secret. He’d thought they were friends, after all, and though it went against his very nature to trust the other, he’d thought that was what friends were _supposed_ to do. It wasn’t a mistake he’d make again.

So finishing getting dressed, Deceit swept to his bedside table, on top of which he kept his hearing aids and the bowler hat he always paired them with and donned the items, flicking the switch to turn them on as he did so.

Immediately, his previously peaceful silence was broken by a series of loud smashes in combination with a far too familiar maniacal laugh.

Remus was up early then.

_Wonderful_.

And, even more joyously, those smashes were far too loud to be coming from the kitchen.

Suppressing the urge to take his hearing aids out again and bury himself under his blankets for the next several years, Deceit adjusted his bowler hat so that it more fully covered his ears, and opened his bedroom door.

‘Watch out!’

Instinctively, Deceit ducked. Out of the corner of his vision he caught sight of a spinning object hurtling through the space where his head had been moments before.

‘Almost got you there!’ Remus cackled. ‘Can you _imagine_ if it’d shattered on your throat and all the tiny shards had gotten stuck in it and then you bled out all over the floor!’

Deceit straightened. Currently all over the floor was what looked like the entirety of the porcelain dishes from their kitchen cupboards.

‘I see you’ve decided we’ll be eating out of Tupperware again until I can sneak some new dishes from the light sides,’ Deceit drawled.

Remus stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. ‘Oh, don’t be such a spoil-snake Dee-Dee. It’s fun! Here, you try.’ He produced an unbroken plate from seemingly nowhere and held it out.

Deceit looked from him to the plate and back again, eyebrow raised. The grin on Remus’ face didn’t waver the longer they stood there. It was almost funny how the man thought he had any hope of convincing Deceit to join his games, even after all these years of being refused and scoffed at.

Eventually Deceit rolled his eyes and pushed past him down the corridor, heading to the kitchen. Behind him, Remus said something, but Deceit always struggled hardest to hear from that direction and he couldn’t make it out – even with Remus’ loud tone. Though considering it was Remus, it was hardly likely to be anything life changing. Or even vaguely important. Deceit ignored him.

As he’d suspected, a search of the kitchen cupboards landed him with nothing of the plate, bowl, or mug variety; indeed all sacrificed to Remus’ latest destructive whim. What did surprise him was that the cupboard where they usually kept the Tupperware was also suspiciously empty.

Squat down and staring into the cupboard in the vain hope that something, _anything_ , he could feasibly drink his morning hot chocolate from would materialise, Deceit almost jumped out of his scales when a foot kicked him in the side.

‘What.’ He said icily, getting up and turning to see Remus sat on the countertop and swinging his legs merrily.

‘You’re being a drammmaaaaa queen, Dee.’ Remus said, rolling his neck and undoubtedly making it crack in that way that used to make Virgil cringe. ‘I can just make more!’

Visions of crockery that melted, or worse, _exploded_ , upon use flashed before Deceit’s mind.

‘No!’ He quickly put in. One set of Remus’ version of plates was enough for a lifetime. He forced a smile. ‘How about we do something else instead?’ If there was a class on How To Deal With The Duke On A Day By Day Basis (And Not Resort to Murder) 101, the first lesson would be distraction.

‘Oooh, I know,’ Remus sing-songed. ‘You can tell me all about how it went yesterday with my brother.’ His voice dropped dangerously on the word “brother”, a slightly deranged glint taking over his eyes.

‘It went fine.’

There it was again. That word: “fine”. He was fine, it was fine, everything was fine, fine, _fine_. He wanted to gauge the word out of his vocal cords. Or maybe he’d just spent too much time with only Remus for company.

But The Mission , as he’d taken to calling it in his head, _had_ gone fin-ADEQUATELY (God, he sounded like Logic). The theatre had been, if he didn’t say so himself, a stroke of genius. Playing on Roman’s passion for theatrics had been far too easy, plus with the headsets and mics relaying what the others were saying directly into his ear, he’d had little problem hearing everybody.

It’d gotten harder back in Thomas’ living room. Virgil would hardly look at him which, considering he was a mumbler anyway, made Deceit’s life _oh so easy_. Logic seemed to be allergic to expressions so discerning his meaning when Deceit didn’t catch every word he used based on his face wasn’t exactly a walk in the park either. Even Thomas kept turning his head to face the others so reading his lips wasn’t always possible.

At least Roman was just as exuberant as his brother when it came to both volume and gestures.

All in all, Deceit thought he’d done okay. His dramatic villain reveal had gone well, he’d argued his point, he’d…

Gotten out of there as quickly as possible.

So sue him, he was a coward. Embodying such a large chunk of self-preservation would do that to a side. But it was exhausting trying to keep up with the scooby-doo gang’s version of a conversation, and the longer he stayed the more the chance of them becoming suspicious grew.

He’d retreated to his room and spent the whole of the last night trying and failing to figure out how he was going to keep this up.

Which led to now.

‘Come oooon,’ Remus was whining. ‘I want all the juicy, juicy details. Is the stick up Logic’s butthole just as stuck as ever? Is Virgy-poo wearing white fluffy wings now like the _angel_ he thinks he is? Is Morality still Mr. Bossy pants?’ There was a pause where Remus visibly swallowed, his joker-wide grin not matching the swirling mix of hatred and hurt Deceit could pick out in his eyes. ‘Did my brother mention me?’

Deceit turned his head to the ceiling. He was too hot chocolate-less to be dealing with this.

He turned back to Remus, a plastic smile firmly in place. ‘ _Roman_ could hardly stop gushing about how much he missed your little get togethers for long enough to _breathe._ In fact, he’s probably waiting for you in the imagination right this very second.’

Remus’ face lit up in the kind of excitement that meant he was probably going to start breaking things (again). Bones, probably – though preferably _not_ Deceit’s. He jumped off the countertop, and Deceit winced as the floor tiles cracked under his feet. ‘Sorry Dee-Dee, but I’ve got an ass-pointment to catch. And then murder!’ He added gleefully.

‘Have fun,’ Deceit called after Remus’ retreating form as he skipped away towards his room and the door to the imagination that lay within, the Morningstar he’d produced from nowhere swinging next to his ankles.

_Ah, sweet peace and quiet_.

It was probably cruel to lie to Remus about his brother like that, but if the oaf had yet to realise that Deceit being the literal embodiment of lying meant that he lied occasionally (or a lot), it was hardly Deceit’s fault.

Besides, he had things to do.

And since he was not brave enough to venture unaccompanied into Remus’ room to look for the missing Tupperware, stealing new dishes from the light sides was now top of the list. There was no way he was going to miss putting a plate out for the two sides in the basement; Apathy, he was certain, wouldn’t care a jot, but Rage… It was better not to provoke that particular side if one could help it.

So it seemed he would be going further than the dark’s common room after all. How to go about infiltrating the light sides was the question…

Well… fool me once, fool me twice…

‘Shame on me,’ Deceit muttered with a smile, and headed in the direction of Virgil’s old room.

***

Standing outside the door that led to the light sides area of the mind palace, disguised with Virgil’s face, badly done eyeshadow and the old black jacket he’d found and dusted off, Deceit hesitated.

He’d picked Virgil because the side was the most likely to still be in bed at this hour of the morning, and was therefore his best chance at not arousing suspicion and getting caught. After yesterday, he was sure the light’s would be _just delighted_ to find Deceit wondering around their home – but as much as Deceit would _love_ to find out what their reaction to his presence would be, he was really hoping they wouldn’t see through his disguise this time.

Deceit shook himself. He was only going to grab a few plates – he was hardly breaking into Fort Knox. If all went well he could be in and out in ten minutes.

Pulling Virgil’s hood up to cover his hearing aids, he pushed open the door.

Immediately he was assaulted by how bright it was. _Gah_ , how did they live like this? He had to stand there blinking for several moments before he could even take in his surroundings.

He was standing in a corridor, the walls painted a pastel blue, and when he looked back at the door he’d just come from, it was to be faced with what looked like a traffic warning sign, complete with red triangle and a cartoon snake in a bowler hat in the centre, hanging from the wood panelling.

Deceit was almost touched that he’d managed to rattle the light’s enough for them to add the warning.

‘Virgil?’ a voice said from just over Deceit’s shoulder, making him jump. ‘I apologise. I did not mean to startle you.’

_Logic_. Just who he wanted to bump into; the side second most likely, only after Virgil himself, to figure out that he wasn’t who he was pretending to be. _Fantastic_.

He hadn’t even been there two minutes.

Logic was still talking. ‘I only thought you would have heard me coming.’

Well, there was little chance of that unless the side added a one-man-band ensemble to his outfit. Still, it was time to put his acting to the test.

He turned to face Logic head-on and twitched his lip into half a smile. ‘It’s fine. I just had something on my mind.’

Logic seemed to accept that, though his forehead crinkled into the slightest of frowns after only a moment.

‘May I ask what you are doing down here?’

Deceit shrugged, mimicking Virgil’s primary method of communication. ‘Just checking for any signs of intruders. You know, after yesterday.’

‘And did you find any?’

‘Nar, all good t-’ Deceit cut himself off. He couldn’t remember the nickname Virgil called Logic. Was it Tutor? That didn’t sound right. _Shit_. It was better to avoid nicknames for now; he was sure he’d gotten a few wrong yesterday and that was partially why he’d been caught out. ‘Logan,’ he hastily added, somewhat awkwardly after the slight pause.

Luckily Logic didn’t seem to notice. ‘In that case, would you care to join me for breakfast? I believe Patton is making blueberry pancakes.’

Deceit’s stomach rumbled at the thought – he hadn’t eaten yet after all, plus he’d missed dinner the previous night because he was too busy analysing every second he could remember of his interaction with the others.

‘I will take that as a yes,’ continued Logic, and span on his heel to take off at a brisk pace down the corridor.

Deceit followed him, eyes fixed on the back of the side’s head, until they reached the kitchen where Morality was indeed scraping a pancake off of a frying pan and onto an already teetering pile.

‘Virgil!’ he exclaimed happily upon noticing them. ‘You’re up early. Was the smell of Pat-cakes that delicious?’

Deceit forced a smile, hoping it looked genuine enough.

‘I’d give you a hug,’ Morality continued, and Deceit had to stop himself from recoiling at the thought, ‘but my hands are _fried_. Get it? Instead of _tied_! Because I’m _fry_ ing.’

Morality giggled at his (rather awful as far as Deceit was concerned) pun but Deceit couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

The pancakes really did smell heavenly – it was the warm welcome that threw him off. He didn’t think anyone had ever been as happy to see him as Patton was to see “Virgil”. Frankly, the overabundance of cheerfulness radiating off of Morality was a little sickening.

The moral side was looking at him funny. _Shit_ , had he said something Deceit had missed?

There was nothing for it; time to activate Plan A for these situations: hope it was a yes/no question and hedge his bets.

‘Yes,’ he blurted… _probably_ louder than Virgil would normally say pretty much anything.

_Great_ , now even Logic had looked up from reading his newspaper at the breakfast table to stare at him oddly. ‘Yes… what?’

Well, he’d committed to it now. ‘To Patton’s question,’ he answered, injecting a hint of uncertainty into his tone.

Patton’s wide smile had almost disappeared entirely behind an expression of confusion. ‘I… didn’t ask any questions?’ He almost sounded like he was questioning his own memory, which would have been a little funny if Deceit wasn’t standing on such a perilous knife-edge where a millisecond of misbalance could reveal him as the intruder he was.

‘O-oh.’ The broken syllable wasn’t even entirely put on. Damn him and his stupid jumping to conclusions. He was never going to get away with this ridiculous…

No. Okay. He just needed to calm down. This was _fine_. People misheard things all the time. He just had to play it cool.

‘Sorry, I thought I heard you say something, and then you were looking at me,’ Deceit shrugged again.

‘There’s no need to apologise kiddo!’ said Morality, and he even sounded sincere. Which made sense considering who he was, but Deceit still had memories tucked away from when they were very young and still trying to _all_ work together as a unit.

Deceit had apologised a _lot_ back then – for not hearing, or mis-hearing or asking the others to repeat themselves – and Morality had never told him _then_ that it wasn’t necessary. Deceit made it a point now (at least when wearing his own face) to _never_ apologise.

‘I was just wondering why you’re wearing your old jacket?’ Morality continued. ‘Is everything okay?’

Deceit looked down at the black hoodie he was wearing. What was wrong…?

Ahhh right, Virgil wore that purple monstrosity these days, didn’t he. It was a good thing lying was his specialty.

‘Oh that,’ he said as if it was something he’d barely noticed. ‘I spilt some eyeshadow on the new one. It’s in the wash. Figured I still had this old thing lying around.’

Morality’s relieved smile lit up his whole face. ‘That’s alright then – as long as you’re okay.’

Deceit watched as Morality expertly balanced the plate of perfectly steaming pancakes in one hand and rummaged in the cutlery draw with the other, before taking them over to the breakfast table and scooping up the maple syrup. Deceit hovered a few steps away from a chair. Maybe he could allow himself to stay for one pancake? It wasn’t like they seemed all that suspicious of him…

Logic’s voice cut through his internal debate. ‘I was under the impression that you had burned that hoodie.’

‘ _Burned_ it?!’ he exclaimed before he could stop himself. And okay, he knew the one he was wearing was Virgil’s old spare, but he’d assumed the other side had simply taken the original with him when he’d left to live with the light’s, not _destroyed_ it.

Deceit had helped him make that hoodie; had repaired it countless times over the years. Did Virgil really hate him so much that he wouldn’t even keep something that reminded him of the good times they’d had together?

‘Apparently not,’ he replied too stiffly. Too unlike Virgil.

Okay, there was no way he was staying for pancakes; not when Logic was watching him with his head tilted slightly to the side like that.

‘Actually, I’m meant to be doing a thing for Roman,’ he said, manoeuvring himself into the kitchen and opening the crockery cupboard. ‘He asked me to bring him some plates and stuff. I think he wants to decorate them or something.’

He heard Patton exclaim something from behind him, but all Deceit caught of his sentence was ‘…pancakes?’

‘I’ll have some later,’ he hedged.

When he’d balanced four dinner plates, two bowls and two mugs on top of each other and was holding them as securely as they were going to get, Deceit turned to face the others.

Three pairs of eyes stared back at him.

Roman hovered uncertainly near the doorway.

‘What’re you doing there, Emo-tastic?’

_Not your best Roman_ , Deceit just had time to think before Logic cut in. ‘Apparently bringing you crockery to decorate as you asked.’

Roman huffed a confused laugh. ‘Don’t think I did Specs.’

_Okay, no need to panic_ , Deceit’s mind raced. He could talk his way out of this.

‘Did I say that? No, what I meant was I thought it might be a nice _idea_ for Roman to decorate them.’

‘That’s a great idea, kiddo!’ exclaimed Morality. ‘Maybe we could all do it together!’

Logic did not seem all that thrilled by that plan judging by his slightly pinched expression, and Deceit wholeheartedly agreed. But before he could voice his excuses, a flicker of movement on the staircase caught his attention.

A pair of feet clad in black trainers were coming down the stairs.

_Abort! Abort!_ Klaxons blared in Deceit’s mind as the three other sides in the kitchen turned, as if in slow motion, to face the legs now visible and which _clearly_ belonged to Virgil.

_Oh he was so screwed._

‘It’s Deceit in disguise!’ he screeched, haphazardly shifting the plates onto one hand so he could point with the other.

The kitchen descended into chaos.

‘That fiend!’ Roman cried, pulling his sword from its sheath and waving it exuberantly in Virgil’s direction.

Morality gasped, grabbing the plate of pancakes off of the table and clutching them to his chest, not seeming to notice when a glob of syrup dribbled off the plate and onto his shirt.

Only Logic stayed immobile, a single eyebrow raised in Deceit’s direction. ‘I don’t think -’

But he was cut off by Roman. ‘Reveal yourself at once you slippery serpent of subterfuge!’

When Virgil finally reached the bottom of the stairs, Deceit saw that he had a pair of headphones covering his ears and was looking down at his phone. It took a moment for him to glance up, and when he did, he did a double take.

‘What… the _fuck_ is going on?’ he asked, eyes scanning the scene before him.

It wasn’t until they alighted on Deceit that his eyes narrowed in anger.

‘Deceit,’ he practically spat, voice going distorted around the edges.

‘What?!’ Roman yelled.

Deceit didn’t give him time to turn his sword on him – he dropped the crockery and bolted.

***

It wasn’t until he was back in the (relative) safety of the dark side’s part of the mindscape, the door locked behind him, that Deceit allowed himself to breathe.

Well that had gone _spectacularly_.

He let his disguise melt away, shrugging off Virgil’s old hoodie as he felt his scales return to his face, his eye burning for a millisecond as it shifted back to its reptilian state.

He sighed, and lent back against the cool wood of the door.

Nothing like giving the light side’s yet another reason to hate him to start the morning.

He hadn’t even gotten the new dishes.

_It’s fine_ , he told himself, ignoring the way his hands, still shaking with adrenaline, had clenched into tight fists. He was a master of improvisation. It would be _fine_.

He glanced down at his wristwatch: ten o’clock. The residents of the basement would have been expecting their breakfast half an hour ago.

The only thing he could hope was that Rage was in a good mood.

_(…As if)._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a day early but who's counting lol :p
> 
> Also, I forgot to mention in the first chapters notes, but if anyone's interested the title of this fic is from an Oscar Wilde quote. The full quote is: “I feel that if I kept it secret it might grow in my mind (as poisonous things grow in the dark) and take its place with the other terrible thoughts that gnaw me”. Gotta love me some good ol' Wilde lol.
> 
> On a serious note though guys, with this chapter especially, heed the tags: ableism and violence ahead. Please don't read if you think it will negatively affect you. Take care <3

Standing in the basement corridor, outside the door to Rage's room, Deceit shivered.

It was always one thing or the other down here; freezing cold or boiling hot - in complete contrast to the carefully climate controlled temperature of Deceit's room. His snake half _hated_ it.

Come to think of it, his human half wasn't all that keen on it either.

The basement was where the sides who embodied only minimally used traits lived - the ones who had even less of a say than the dark sides as to how Thomas went about his everyday life. Currently, it only had the two occupants - Apathy and Rage - but Virgil had once lived down there too, until Thomas hit puberty at least and he suddenly had a much bigger role to play.

They never left the basement and Deceit was the only one who ever went down there. Somehow - and he really wasn't sure how - it had ended up as his responsibility to look after them. To feed them, to make sure Apathy got out of bed to shower once in a while, to keep Rage calm, and - most importantly - to ensure they stayed as far away from Thomas' consciousness as possible.

As much as he disagreed with the light sides on _many_ things, Deceit was aware that they did always act with Thomas' best interests at heart. Even if they were wrong a lot, and probably wouldn't say the same about him.

But when it came to the sides in the basement... Deceit wasn't so sure that was the case.

Deceit had already given Apathy his food and stood at his bedside glaring long enough to make sure he'd sat up and was actually going to eat it, and now he just had to deal with Rage.

Deceit hovered, and adjusted his bowler hat, staring down at the saucepan piled up with beans, sausage, eggs and bacon he was holding. He definitely wasn't stalling. He'd made Rage's favourite after all - what did he have to be worried about?

Admittedly, it didn't look as appealing as it normally would, slightly mixed together as it had ended up in the too-small pan. But the saucepans were the only things he'd been able to find that Remus hadn't gotten hold of.

'This is ridiculous,' Deceit grumbled to himself, and put his hand on the door handle. The quicker he got it over with, the sooner he could get back to his bed. By god, did he need a nap after this disaster of a morning.

He twisted the knob and pushed his way into the room.

Rage's room really leaned into the orange aesthetic. Don't get him wrong, Deceit did enjoy his yellow trimmings, but Rage took it to a whole new level. _Everything_ was orange, from the bedspread and cushions, to the wardrobe and desk, to the door that led to the adjoining bathroom and the porcelain furnishings within. It was just as harsh to look at as the side that dwelled within could be to deal with.

At first glance, everything was perfectly in its place, not even a hair where it didn't belong. But Deceit was familiar enough with the room that he could easily pick out the cracks in the mirror, the places where the furniture had been damaged and repaired, the stitching in the pillows and bedsheets that he himself had sewn up after Rage had torn them half to shreds in a fit of… well, rage.

Rage himself was sat with his back to Deceit, behind his desk. The only indication he gave that he'd noticed Deceit's presence was a miniscule turn of his head in his direction.

Shutting the door behind him, Deceit stepped further into the room, and made the split second decision to simply not mention the saucepan-instead-of-plate debacle and hope Rage would do the same.

Deceit carefully placed the meal next to Rage's elbow and backed away.

There. Done. Now he could-

Rage spoke, in a voice far lower than Deceit had any chance of hearing.

_Maybe it was simply a long overdue thank you,_ thought Deceit, pointedly _not_ paying any attention to the way his heart seemed to stutter for a moment. All he had to do was quietly leave and everything would be fine.

He'd made it to the doorway, hand ready on the handle and about to twist, when it happened.

A force _slammed_ into Deceit's back, knocking all the air out of him and causing his head to whiplash forward into the door, forehead colliding agonizingly with the wood panelling and his hat toppling to the floor in the process.

He was so dazed it took Deceit a few seconds to realise he was pinned, burning fingers around his neck holding him tightly in place and Rage's hot breath on the back of his neck making his hairs stand on end.

'Get. Off. Of. Me,' Deceit growled, heart thundering against his ribcage. Rage could snap his neck before he could blink in a position like this. 'Now!'

The pressure on his neck eased just enough that Deceit could twist around and step out of Rage's grasp.

Rage glared, eyes glinting with fire, as Deceit straightened his shirt and bent down to pick up his hat. The world tilted on its axis when he stood up again, everything blurring together into a mess of orange.

_Great – a concussion. Just what he needed._

Deceit put his hat back on and pulled the brim low over his forehead - hopefully it would hide the way he was sure his eyes were out of focus.

' _What_ was that about?' Deceit asked, schooling his face into a mask of cool blankness and suppressing the urge to wince at his throbbing head.

Rage seethed, lips curled away from his teeth so Deceit could see how tightly they were gritted together. 'Did you think I wouldn't _notice_?'

'Notice what?' sighed Deceit, putting his _completely still and unshaking_ hands into his trouser pockets, as though bored.

'This,' Rage stormed over to his desk and slammed his hand down on the wood, making the saucepan sitting on top wobble.

Deceit rolled his eyes - then immediately regretted it as he was hit with a wave of dizziness. 'You can thank Remus for the lack of a plate. I went to _borrow_ some from the light sides but-'

'The _light_ _sides,_ ' Rage roared. 'You think I care about some stupid fucking plates when you're off gallivanting around with _them!_ '

Deceit didn't manage to get out of the way quick enough as the saucepan came flying towards him, hitting him square on the chest. A mess of soggy beans and egg dripped down his front.

Deceit bit down on the inside of his cheek and breathed shallowly through his nose. He had to stay calm - getting angry would only work Rage up even more. _But he liked this shirt goddamnit!_

'So what, exactly, is the problem here?' Deceit ground out.

Rage laughed without humour, picking up the laptop that Deceit had payed no attention to from his desk, and shoving it under Deceit's nose.

The screen was open on YouTube, Thomas' latest video playing on mute. Deceit watched as Logic pointed at past-him, and he was revealed in his full villain garb. It had come out quite well on camera to be honest, and Deceit couldn't deny the small pang of pride he felt at his first public appearance.

Sure, he wasn't fond of Thomas' belief that he was evil incarnate, but still, it was fun to play the bad guy.

'Yes, that is indeed Thomas' YouTube channel. It's how he makes a living, or had you forgotten about that?'

'Don't play coy with me,' Rage sneered. 'I know what you're up to, revealing yourself to Thomas. You think I don't know what happened to Anxiety? What, you think you're going to go the same way? Get accepted and leave me and Apathy down here to rot?!'

'Oh, don't be stupid, I-'

The punch, Deceit would later admit to himself, he should have seen coming.

One second he was half scoffing at the ridiculousness of Rage's concerns - _him join the light sides? Oh yes,_ that _was going to happen_ \- and the next a fist was rushing towards his face. Deceit just had time to turn his head to avoid the worst of the blow, before the punch landed directly on his ear.

His hearing aid whistled loudly as it was dislodged and fell to the floor, and Deceit hissed in pain, reaching up to cup his ear.

Was he bleeding? It felt like he was bleeding. It certainly hurt _a lot_. His vision was positively swimming now...

No, wait - that didn't matter. He couldn't let Rage see his -

'...hell is this?' Deceit was just about able to catch Rage say with his one working ear.

The other side had snatched his hearing aid off the floor and was turning it over in his hand.

'Give it back,' Deceit commanded quietly. He didn't need to be able to hear his own voice clearly to know that it wasn't quite steady.

Rage did not, in fact, give it back. Instead, he grasped ahold of Deceit's chin and forced it to the side.

'And look! There's another one!' he sounded almost sickeningly delighted, and Deceit's stomach churned. 'Tell me _Deceit_ , are you deaf?'

'No,' Deceit bit out, trying and failing to dislodge Rage's hand from its bruising grip.

'Meaning yes, of course - you being Deceit and all.' Rage laughed, a warped, grating sound, far more unnerving than Remus' insane chattering, or Deceit's own attempt at a maniacal chuckle could ever come close to. 'And to think, you thought you had a chance of joining the lights. As if they'd want you.' He leaned in close, lips almost touching Deceit's earlobe. 'You're broken Deceit. I'm afraid you're stuck with us.'

Deceit tried again to shake Rage off, but the other side barely seemed to notice, too busy reaching up to yank Deceit's other hearing aid out, nails scratching at the skin around his ear.

Everything suddenly got a whole lot quieter, the only clear sound the rapid thumping of Deceit's heart in his chest.

It wasn't just Deceit's hands that were shaking now - his whole being felt like it was trembling down to the core. He didn’t need to catch a glimpse of himself in Rage’s mirror to know the human half of his face was red with humiliation.

This wasn't - _this wasn't meant to be happening._ Deceit hadn't even considered the possibility of _Rage_ of all sides discovering his secret. Why would he? The side never even left his room for heaven's sake! And now - and now…

Deceit was on the floor and he didn't even know how he'd gotten there.

His hearing aids hit the carpet after him, followed immediately by the heel of an orange combat boot. The crunch pierced Deceit’s mind, making him flinch, even if it was in actuality far too quiet for his ears to pick up.

When the boot stepped away, Deceit quickly snatched up the shattered remains of his devices, and clambered unsteadily to his feet.

Deceit stared at Rage. Rage stared back, the ghost of an unpractised, cruel smile still lingering on his face.

_This is all wrong!_ screamed a voice in the back of Deceit's head. He shushed it.

'We're done here,' he told Rage, the words feeling tight in his throat.

Rage pulled a mock-sad expression, picking the saucepan up off the floor. 'Don't forget this,' Deceit read on his lips, then choked on a gasp when Rage knocked the thing hard into his stomach.

He swallowed hastily, grip tight on the blasted saucepan, and forced himself to stand up straight. He couldn’t afford to appear any weaker than he already had in front of Rage.

‘I hope you enjoy your meal,’ Deceit smiled coldly, raising an eyebrow at the remains of the food that lay scattered across the floor.

Then, with a tip of his hat, he left.

He closed Rage’s bedroom door firmly shut behind him.

Deceit stood stiffly frozen in the basement corridor.

Okay.

So.

Rage knew.

Rage would do god knows what with that information.

Rage had broken his hearing aids.

But…

But, Deceit could deal with this.

Everything was _fine_.

He was _fine._

He was…

…not breathing.

Deceit’s legs buckled as he gulped in air, too quickly – _far_ too quickly – lungs going straight to the opposite extreme as if trying to make up for lost time.

Beneath his ribcage, he could feel his heartrate picking up, faster and faster, until it was jackrabbiting at a thousand miles an hour, every breath coming in short little static-y bursts, each growing more painful than the last. Deceit didn’t even notice how tightly he was clutching the broken shards of his hearing aids until he felt the warm, sticky wetness of blood oozing down his palm.

_I’m fine_ , his brain insisted, repeating it like a mantra when his stupid, panicking body refused to listen. _I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfine I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfine I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfine I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’m-_

He couldn’t get it to shut up. Distantly he wondered if this was how Remus felt when he couldn’t control his own thoughts.

The tiles underneath him were hot, almost burning to the touch. _I can’t stay here,_ a stray rational thought provided. But his body was too busy betraying him to react, his vision zeroing in when he didn’t mean for it to, his stomach churning with barely suppressed nausea, his legs not cooperating when he begged them to _just move already!_

A faint giggle escaped his lips, and he didn’t even care if it probably sounded a little hysterical. It wasn’t like he could hear it.

Deceit slumped against the door at his back, closing his eyes, and tried to count his breathing. Maybe if he just rested here for a minute or two, he’d work up the energy to make it upstairs…

***

Virgil was pacing outside Deceit’s bedroom door, an act that was frustrating him in and off itself. _He didn’t want to be here._

Half of him was more than ready to give up and go home. The other half _needed_ to find out what Deceit had been up to or he’d never be able to sleep at night.

He _knew_ they couldn’t trust the other side. Everything he ever did was just some manipulation tactic to get more influence over Thomas. He’d proved that once and for all at the theatre yesterday. There was no way in hell that Virgil was going to let that snake trick Thomas into being a bad person – because that was the reality of what was going to happen if they got complacent and let Deceit just start hanging around.

Virgil was many things but complacent was not one of them.

Not to mention Deceit had been skulking about wearing _his_ face. It was bad enough that he’d impersonated Patton yesterday. This though – this was personal.

For all Virgil knew, Deceit could have been trying to make the others’ think they couldn’t trust _him_. Which - _no_. The thought was almost too horrifying to imagine. He finally had a place he felt comfortable, friends – family even – who cared about him, and that snake thought he could take it away?

Yeah, no way was he letting that happen.

Now if only Deceit would emerge from whatever hole he’d crawled into so Virgil could actually tell him that, that’d be great.

Virgil chewed on his thumb nail. _Where was he?_

The pit of his stomach squirmed uncomfortably with anxiety. Which, yeah alright, he was aware wasn't exactly unusual. But this was different in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Something was wrong. _That_ he knew.

And his gut… Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on his instincts. His gut told him it was coming from downstairs.

Like, _downstairs_ downstairs. The basement.

He opened his eyes and groaned loudly. That place was _not_ his problem.

But then again if he was feeling another side's anxiety - cos he was pretty sure now that's what it was - then that meant whoever it was had hit a whole other level of, well, _anxiety_.

Ah Christ, he was going to have to check it out, wasn't he?

Stepping down the corridor, Virgil made sure to carefully kick the bits of broken plates he kept finding next to the wall. If Deceit couldn’t be bothered to tidy up Virgil would have to do it himself before he left. Seriously, what if someone fell and cut themselves?

_Also not my problem_ , a voice in his head reminded him.

When Virgil reached the dark side’s common room, he almost didn’t notice The Duke sitting on the couch. The other side had his knees pulled up in front of him, and was quietly ripping the stuffing out of a tear in the armrest, the expression on his face stuck in a melodramatic pout.

‘He wasn’t _there_ , Dee-Dee,’ Remus whined without looking up.

_Who_ wasn’t _where_? Virgil wondered, then quickly decided he didn’t care. Alone with The Duke was not somewhere he wanted to be right now. Or ever, to be honest. Virgil hurried past the back of the sofa, towards the little door in the corner of the room and the stairs he knew lay beyond but hadn’t seen since the single time he’d climbed them god-knows how long ago.

‘I looked everywhere for him, but he hadn’t even left anything in return for my present!’ Remus continued, voice wavering up an octave as if he was actually upset. Which – yeah, no, seemed pretty unlikely. Virgil wasn’t even certain it was _possible_ for The Duke to get upset by anything. ‘Do you think -’

He cut himself off suddenly, and there was a heavy moment of silence that made Virgil’s heartrate skyrocket.

‘Virgey-poo?’ Remus’ astonished voice asked from behind him. Reluctantly, Virgil turned to face him, drawing his hoodie sleeves over his hands as he did so and rubbing the fabric comfortingly between his thumb and forefinger. ‘You’re back?’

‘ _No_ ,’ Virgil shook his head emphatically. ‘Definitely not.’

The Duke didn’t seem to hear him, too busy clambering unsteadily to his feet on the sofa, a wide grin spreading across his face like mildew. ‘Will you play goose-fighting with me?’ he asked, bouncing on the heels of his feet and making the sofa creak ominously. ‘It’s like pillow fighting, but the pillow’s alive and trying to break your neck!’ He sounded very excited by the prospect.

‘I think it’s actually swans who’re supposed to do that,’ Virgil mumbled, then shook himself. _Not important_. ‘I can’t – I’m busy.’

Remus made a sound like a cow who didn’t want to be milked, and threw himself back down on the sofa, feet sticking up in the air. ‘Everyone’s _always_ busy.’

_I wonder why_ , Virgil thought wryly.

Leaving Remus to mope on the sofa, Virgil opened the door to the basement and began his descent.

The door shut behind him with a click, enveloping him in a musty darkness. He stood still for several moments, letting his eyes adjust.

Virgil had forgotten about the smell down here – a sort of weird, stale odour, mixed with… paint thinner? – as well as the heat. God, it was _boiling_. Surely it hadn’t used to be this hot when he lived here? Maybe when Thomas, and by extension Rage, was having a tantrum when he was a kid, but there was no way it was like this all the time.

Unless he was misremembering. He didn’t have many memories of his time before coming upstairs; he’d been kind of a shadow of a side back then – only activating when Thomas needed to be afraid, to fight or flee from a situation, and staying dormant the rest of the time, pretty much just eating, drinking and sleeping.

He’d always kind of assumed that was what it was like for the sides still down here. The idea of questioning that assumption made his stomach clench uneasily.

It was only when he reached the bottom step that Virgil noticed Deceit.

The side was slumped with his head back and his eyes closed against one of the doors. He didn't so much as twitch as Virgil cautiously approached, so still that Virgil could barely tell if he was breathing.

_Oh shit, what if he's_ not _breathing?_

No, no, okay, it was fine - as Virgil got closer he could just make out tiny, rapid movements of Deceit's chest.

_It could be a trick_ , half of his brain screamed at him. _He's trying to get you to let your guard down!_

The other half of his brain - the half that sounded very much like Logan right now - questioned what the hell kind of plan this would be? Deceit was alone in a place no one but him usually went, and he'd had no idea Virgil was going to turn up.

Virgil knelt down in front of Deceit, pulling his phone out of his pocket and turning on the torch. He couldn't help recoiling slightly in shock when the light hit the other side's face.

Deceit looked, in a word, _rough_.

There was a nasty red bruise blossoming on his forehead, and another around his right ear, which had a small amount of dried blood under it. Around his left there were a series of raised, red scratches, and on both his neck and chin what looked like burn marks in the shape of fingerprints.

Plus he was covered in baked beans, but Virgil figured that was the least of his worries considering the rest.

‘What the hell happened to you?’

Deceit didn’t react to his voice so Virgil hesitantly reached out and prodded him semi-gently in the arm. Slowly his eyes flickered open, though Virgil could see by the way his pupils were wondering around the room that he was having trouble focusing. _And_ they were clearly different sizes – his snake eye small and slitted, whilst his human one was blown wide. That _could not_ be a good sign.

Virgil clicked his fingers in front of his face. ‘Hey, look at me.’ Deceit did look at him, though his eyes seemed to get stuck on the lower half of his face. _Close enough_ , thought Virgil, the pit of worry in his chest growing bigger by the second. ‘What happened?’ he repeated.

A frown spread across Deceit’s face and it took him several moments to reply, wetting his lips with his tongue before he did so. ‘I had a run in with a female aardvark.’

Virgil stared at him until Deceit rolled his eyes – then grimaced and reached up to massage his temple when the action apparently caused him pain. ‘What do you think happened?’ he said, tone bitter. He jerked a thumb at the door behind him, his hand a tight fist with a trail of blood running down the side from his palm.

So it was Rage then.

Virgil took a deep breath in and out, and pointedly told himself to worry about that later. First he had to deal with the problem in front of him.

‘Come on, let’s get you out of here,’ he murmured. ‘Can you walk?’

Deceit didn’t even bother to answer his question, simply stared at him as if the concept of walking was completely incomprehensible.

_The hard way it is then_.

With difficulty, Virgil manoeuvred himself so he had one arm around Deceit’s back, the other side’s arm going around his shoulder. He picked up the saucepan lying by Deceit’s side with his free hand – there was no point leaving a mess if he didn’t need to. Plus, the food remains inside would go mouldy if he just left it.

‘Okay, on three we’re going to stand. One – two – three.’

It took a lot of pulling to get Deceit on his feet, and once he’d gotten there he kept swaying backwards and forwards, almost dragging Virgil back to the floor with him. Virgil gritted his teeth and held on, letting Deceit put most of his weight on him as they slowly but surely made progress on their journey.

They were halfway up the stairs when Deceit spoke suddenly. ‘What are you doing here?’

Virgil shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He’d be mad at Deceit another time. Not that he wasn’t still pretty pissed off about his stunt earlier, but Virgil was hardly going to yell at him when he was in this state.

Deceit hummed slightly, but said nothing more until they reached the common room. They’d made it less than a step beyond the door before Remus popped up in front of them.

‘Dee-Dee!’ The Duke practically screamed, face flickering at lightning speed between joyous fascination and the little amount of concern he was capable of as he looked over Deceit’s injuries with interest. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked, reaching a finger out to poke the bruise on Deceit’s forehead.

‘No,’ Deceit said, wincing.

‘Sure it doesn’t,’ muttered Virgil, side-stepping the two of them past The Duke.

Eventually, and with only a few stumbles, they made it to Deceit’s bedroom, where Virgil deposited the other side on the bed. There was an awkward silence during which Deceit pretended to smooth out his already smooth bedcovers and Virgil shifted his weight from foot to foot. It didn’t _seem_ like Deceit was watching him going by the direction he was facing, and yet Virgil could feel his eyes on him all the same.

‘I’ll go and grab you an icepack from the -’

Deceit cut him off. ‘Did you really burn your old hoodie?’

Virgil blinked. _What? Where had that come from?_

‘Logic said that you did,’ Deceit continued casually, though with an edge to it that Virgil _really_ thought was a little hypocritical considering who’s fault it was that he’d left so completely. Don’t get him wrong, Virgil would’ve left anyway, but maybe they could have stayed friends if Deceit hadn’t turned out to be such a… such a…

_Snake._

Virgil crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘You really want to talk about that now? When you’ve probably got a concussion?’

Deceit was staring at him intently, eyes screwed up as though in concentration – though what the hell he was concentrating so hard on, Virgil had no idea. It probably wasn’t sitting upright considering he seemed to be having such trouble with it, listing slightly to the side as he was.

Virgil deflated. ‘Just tell me how you’re feeling so I can help, alright?’

‘Well, my brain _definitely doesn’t_ feel like its about to burst out of my skull, the room is _certainly not_ spinning, there is _zero chance_ of me throwing up on you in the next thirty seconds, and I _totally_ want your help,’ Deceit sneered.

‘I’ll get you a bucket,’ Virgil deadpanned.

***

When Virgil returned it was not only with the promised bucket, but also an icepack and some aspirin.

Deceit was somewhat surprised he’d returned at all.

He was even more surprised that he didn’t leave when Deceit threw up in the bucket, though admittedly he stayed at a greater than arm’s length distance at that point – not that Deceit blamed him. He still hadn’t eaten since breakfast the previous day, so all he was throwing up was bile, but still. _Pleasant_ was not the word for it.

When he was done, Virgil handed him a damp towel which he wiped his face on gratefully. He was sweating _a lot_. The heat down in the basement had done almost as big a number on him as the blow to the head, and _both_ of those things were affecting his brain power. His thoughts felt like they were swimming in molasses.

It was just _fantastic_ that Virgil was getting to see him like this.

Speaking off…

The side was talking again. What he was saying, Deceit didn’t know, and didn’t even particularly _want_ to know. What he wanted was to _sleep_.

‘As enjoyable as your company has been,’ Deceit drawled, probably interrupting Virgil and not caring a jot, ‘why exactly are you still here?’

He bothered to look up this time, to at least make an attempt at reading Virgil’s lips.

‘ --- can’t --- leave --- fall asleep --- wake --- hours --- not dead.’

_Aw_ , _wasn’t that sweet_. Virgil cared enough that he wanted to watch over him sleeping.

Because Deceit was _totally_ going to let that happen.

Yes, he knew that medical advice said to wake someone with a concussion up every few hours to make sure they hadn’t deteriorated blah blah blah…

It didn’t matter. Virgil was _not_ staying.

It hurt too much to have him here. It was too much like old times - back before Deceit had messed everything up and Virgil had fucked off without even saying goodbye.

They weren't friends anymore, and Deceit wasn't going to have Virgil helping him purely out of some misguided sense of pity. He had more pride than _that_. He was fine on his own. It was how he'd spent the last seven months after all.

'Don't you think your little friends are going to be wondering where you've gone by now?' Deceit prodded. 'For all they know, we've captured you and are holding you hostage. They'll be expecting a ransom note with your ear attached any minute now.'

Virgil shot him an unimpressed scowl.

Deceit sighed. 'Well can you at least give me some privacy whilst I get changed into some new clothes. Bean-covered and smelling of sick might be a look you can put up with, but some of us have standards.'

'--- what --- fall --- break ---.'

It took Deceit's addled brain a few moments to figure out what Virgil meant. He could only hope the other side put the repeated delays down to his concussion, rather than come to any conclusions related to the crushed hearing aids he was keeping hidden still clutched in his palm.

'If I do fall and break something then I give you full permission to say "I told you so".'

Virgil still didn't look happy about it, but with a final '--- right outside --- need ---,' he finally left, shutting the door behind him.

Forcing his knees to support him, even as the balance centre of his brain screamed that they really didn't want to, Deceit got to his feet. Placing one foot in front of the other was _so_ much harder than it should have been, but he did manage to make it to his door without falling.

_Oh ye of little faith, Virgil._

_Although considering,_ Deceit thought, turning the lock, _maybe he still has too_ much _faith in my word_.

Hands resting on the panelling of his door, Deceit could feel the vibrations from Virgil's increasingly pissed off knocks as he no doubt demanded Deceit unlock his door again and let him in.

'I don't think so,' Deceit huffed softly, and staggered back to his bed, collapsing onto it with relief.

Finally, he allowed himself to unclench his cramping fist, dropping his once-hearing aids onto his bed covers and wiping away the dry blood on the towel.

He was done. His aching bones were done, his thumping head was done, his dried out scales were done, he was just _done_.

Everything else could wait until he'd had a god damned sleep.

Deceit closed his eyes and dreamt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I wasn't expecting Virgil!POV to find its way in there either but what can you do haha :p Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I'm not sure when chapter three will be up since I'm back at work now and have a little less time for writing, but I'll try to get it to you sooner rather than later :)
> 
> Stay well guys!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE apologies for the delay guys - I'll be honest I was hit by a massive bout of writers block.
> 
> I'm also kind of flabbergast that this little fic has got over a hundred kudos!? That and your lovely comments mean the absolute world to me, thank you guys so so much!
> 
> Remember to heed the tags as always (ableism from the start in this one folks), but otherwise I hope you enjoy!

Deceit was curled up on the sofa in the dark side's common room, a hot chocolate at his side and a philosophy book open on his lap. He was alone. He was content.

Except… except he wasn't alone. He looked up and suddenly the light sides were standing in front of him - all four of them staring him down, expressions of fury evident on every face.

They were yelling at him - yelling so hard their cheeks were turning red as a traffic cone.

But even though Deceit strained his ears as much as he could, he just couldn't hear them.

'I'm sorry,' he felt his lips make the shape of the words. 'I'm so sorry.'

Distantly Deceit realised he was dreaming – he never apologised in the waking world – but that didn’t change that fact that there was water running down his face as he repeated the cursed word like he needed it to breathe, and yet somehow he knew the others couldn't hear him either.

He blinked only to find Remus had joined them - blinked again to see Apathy had as well; dark and light united as they had never truly been to confront the one they'd realised was their real enemy.

Deceit knew who was coming next if he blinked again, so instead he squeezed his eyes shut tight, pressing down on them with the heels of his hands to block out the light.

Rage appeared anyway. Deceit could feel the heat radiating off of him.

Blistering hot hands clasped Deceit's wrists, yanking hard enough that he felt the bones crack into pieces as they were forced away from his face.

Fingernails peeled open his eyelids, and then Deceit was staring straight into a pair of burning orange eyes.

'You're broken,' Rage snarled, and now Deceit heard every word perfectly. 'We don't need a side like you slowing us down. Defective. Inferior. Useless.'

Deceit's tongue was lead in his mouth, heavy and unyielding, refusing to even attempt to explain that _no, no he could do it! He could be useful to Thomas if they just let him try -_

The scene shifted, and then Thomas stood at the top of the basement stairs, looking down on Deceit with a gaze full of disgust.

Sprawled on the stone, Deceit tried to drag himself upwards, only to fall and end up sliding pitifully further and further away from the man.

'Why would I want anything to do with a slimy, lying snake?' Thomas sneered, sounding more like Rage than he was ever meant too. 'Especially a broken one like you?'

_'No!'_ Deceit screamed as Thomas turned away and the door slammed shut, encasing him in a still and silent darkness.

***

Deceit woke with a pounding heart and a scream on his lips.

He sincerely hoped he hadn't _actually_ screamed, if only for the sake of his personal dignity. It wasn't like _Remus_ would be worried by the sound - it was practically music to that side's ears - and no one else was close enough to hear.

It had been three nights since his encounter with Rage, and Deceit had had non-stop nightmares throughout every single one of them. A fact he was enjoying _immensely_.

The days had been spent in his room - sleeping off his concussion mostly, and definitely _not_ moping despite what Remus believed.

The Duke had been slipping an ever increasing number of drawings under Deceit's door, each depicting him dying in some way (Deceit's _least_ favourite - not that he'd admit to liking any of them - was the one in which he put a fork in a toaster and was electrocuted), and each with the words "plz stop moping and come and play with me" written on the back.

Today was different. Not because he was going to play with Remus ( _obviously_ ), but because he was feeling well enough to leave his room and begin the arduous task of getting his life back on track.

Problem number one: he needed new hearing aids.

The solution: get some from the imagination.

Which meant going through Roman's room. And this time he was going to make sure there was _zero_ chance of him getting caught.

Deceit washed and dressed quickly in his suit, cloak and hat, grateful that his dizziness had finally subsided and he only had a headache to contend with, and pocketed his broken hearing aids.

Rather than head to the door that separated the light and dark sides again, he instead entered his ensuite bathroom and unscrewed the small, almost unnoticeable, vent covering near the foot of his sink with practised fingers.

He didn't use this method often, but as spy-film-esque as it was, it had proved to be an effective method of discreetly observing the light sides. He'd had to learn how to imitate Morality somehow after all.

Still, he wouldn't deny, in the privacy of his own mind of course, that it did give him a bit of a thrill.

Deceit closed his eyes and breathed slowly through his nose, clearing his mind. In his mind's eye he pictured himself shrinking, his human skin falling away as scales sprung up in its place, his body turning long, thin and limbless.

When he opened his eyes, the world was in infrared, and his reflection in the metal of the vent was that of a yellow, honey morph corn snake.

Deceit stuck his tongue out at himself, feeling the vibrations of a hiss reverberate through his body, and slithered into the vent.

The metal was cold under his belly, seeping into his scales in a way that he knew would leave him lethargic if he lingered. Luckily he wasn't exactly planning on sticking around, and with the scents of his previous trips on his tongue, he was easily able to find his way to the light side's area of the mindscape.

A vent near the ceiling looked down on the light side's common room, and Deceit could hardly _not_ allow himself to take a peak. Sneaking glimpses of their cushy little lives whenever he got the chance was second nature at this point. It was _retcon_ , he told himself, that was all.

(If he'd spent an evening or two over the years lying here and watching them enjoy their movie nights - all snuggled up, warm, safe and happy in one another's company - with a strange, tight sensation gnawing at his chest… well, nobody needed to know.)

Morality was sat on their couch in the living room, staring at nothingness, arms limply wrapped around himself in what looked like a weak attempt at a hug. He was alone, but clearly trying to maintain his usual smile anyway. Except that when he lost concentration, the corners of his mouth kept drooping, only for Morality to shake himself, and plaster the smile back on, beginning the cycle all over again.

Deceit had thought the moral side was meant to be working on not repressing his feelings anymore? Hadn't they made a whole two part video on why it was okay to feel sadness sometimes, or something along those lines?

And sure, Deceit was all for Thomas lying to other people more, but lying to himself - or in this case one of his side's trying to lie to himself about how he were feeling - was only going to hurt him in the long run.

For a moment, Deceit felt compelled to go to him. To - to shake him or comfort him or what, he wasn't sure. He brushed the thought aside. Morality would hardly be either cheered up or made comfortable enough to let his feelings out by _Deceit's_ company. They hated each other by proxy - were quite literally polar opposites, for goodness sake.

No, there was nothing Deceit could do here except hope one of the others came across him before too long.

Deceit tore his eyes away from Morality and continued on his journey.

The vent in Roman's room was under the bed, and Deceit had long ago unscrewed the bottom two screws so that it opened like a flap when he headbutted it in his snake form. He did so now, slithering out of the vent and then sliding between the discarded scraps of paper and other random crap Roman had abandoned, until he could tentatively poke his head out into the light.

The gateway to the imagination swirled before him, a mess of colours and light with a wooden border and stand, like it was originally meant to be an ornate, standalone mirror. Deceit had no idea how Roman was able to sleep at night with that thing shining at him, though he suspected the other side wouldn't get much more sleep even if it were removed.

_'Creativity can't control when it strikes!'_ he'd heard Roman exclaiming to the other light's on more than one occasion. It sounded to Deceit like an excuse for having a terrible sleep schedule - not that he _cared_ about Roman's sleep schedule, but burnout would affect them all.

The scent of the creative side wasn't strong enough for him to be in his room at that moment, so Deceit didn't waste time hesitating, crossing to the portal and sliding through.

The world before Deceit's eyes twisted into a kaleidoscope, his stomach lurching like he'd taken a sudden dip on America's most psychedelic rollercoaster.

When reality did eventually reform around him, Deceit inhaled deeply through his slitted nostrils, dispelling the nausea that had threatened to overcome him _(he’d gotten his fill of being sick these past few days thank you very much)_ , and lifted his head as high as he could manage.

He was on a hilltop, the sky above him a pale blue and dotted with clouds. As he watched, the clouds shifted into shapes, responding to his presence as no doubt Roman had commanded them to do for any visitor, the show-off _(not that Deceit could talk with his own love of theatricality)_. Five bunnies danced above him, running in circles and hopping over each other happily.

It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant scene, just terribly _dull_. With what would have been a smirk were he wearing his typical face, Deceit shot a bolt of his own limited imaginational power up to the sky, and suddenly a sixth cloud materialised, morphing into the image of a king cobra. The cobra circled the bunnies with its long body, trapping them within the confines of its coils, its slitted eyes stalking the bunnies as they grew increasingly jittery, but never striking. It was only there to scare, not harm, after all.

_That’d certainly give Roman something to fume over_ , Deceit chuckled internally and looked away.

The grass was impossibly soft here, and left the _smelltaste_ of sweet Gala apples lingering on his tongue. Deceit knew that if he wandered far enough he’d find fields that tasted of tangerine, then further out brackens of praline truffles, and even a boggy swamp that bubbled with the scent of spinach pizza if he ventured far enough to cross into the no man’s land that encircled Remus’ realm.

None of those were his destination for today though, and Deceit quickly headed west down the hill, towards the little medieval-style hamlet he knew lay in that direction.

The village, when Deceit finally arrived, was bustling. A perpetual market day, always full to bursting, and utterly undeterred by the number of people who should realistically be there considering the small number of residential houses. Not that Roman was the type to care about ‘realistic’.

Closing his eyes, Deceit let a wave of calm wash though him, and transformed back to his human shape. It wouldn’t do to be trampled by the crowds after all, and it was relatively unlikely that any of Roman’s more fully-fleshed-out characters, who might recognise him and report his presence, would be here. Well, except the one he’d come here to see, of course. Deceit shook out his wrists, dislodging the prickly feeling the shift back always left him with.

The cobbled streets were awash with colour, merchants selling everything from silk clothes, to perfumes, spices and every kind of food imaginable, their scents mingling and yet somehow not becoming overwhelming. One of the largest stalls was home to some very fancy swords, and Deceit paused as an ornate dagger caught his gaze.

The dagger was small – small enough to be easily concealed on one’s person – but sharp and deadly nonetheless. Embedded into its handle was a single yellow topaz.

Deceit found himself reaching out to it before he’d really meant to, his fingers tracing the cords of its hilt. A shiver ran up Deceit’s spine, and then all he could feel was a lingering pressure in his back where Rage had shoved him against the door, a hand on his throat that threatened to start squeezing…

Forcefully, he pushed the feelings away, locking them in a little box at the back of his mind. Deceit was _not_ afraid of… of _him._ That would be utterly ridiculous. Deceit had far more power than he did after all, Deceit was the one holding all the cards between them. If Deceit chose to, he could leave Rage down in the basement to rot until the side slowly faded away to nothingness.

He’d do it. He _would_.

Though a Thomas without the ability to feel any form of anger hardly bore thinking about, Deceit _would_ do it if he had to.

~~He wouldn’t. He wasn’t even sure if he could. Hurting Thomas like that, even indirectly, went against his every instinct, his very nature. He’d rather let Rage break every bone in his body, shatter them into tiny pieces as he screamed in agony- _shutupshutupshutupshutup-_~~

So. Deceit didn’t _need_ the knife. He _knew_ that. It was simply aesthetically pleasing, and would undoubtedly add to his ‘cloak and dagger’ ensemble. The fact that yellow topaz symbolised protection to both the ancient Greeks and Egyptians was a coincidence – or not even that! A mere happenstance. Because Deceit didn’t need protection.

As soon as the merchant turned his back, Deceit slipped the dagger and its accompanying sheath into a fold beneath his cloak, and stepped back into the crowd before the owner could realise what had happened.

Deceit was a hundred yards up the street before a red clad guard with shiny gold buttons sprinted past him with a tense expression. There was no way these shades of true characters would be clever enough to figure out it was him, but Deceit kept his head down nonetheless until he reached the painted pale pink door that was his destination.

‘Dr. Emile Picani’ read the nameplate fixed to the door. Deceit allowed himself a grimace. Talking to the figment might have been necessary, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be any less tedious. He pushed the door open without knocking and stepped through.

Inside, the medieval décor of the street fell away to become an entirely modern waiting area, with a currently closed door off to the side which led to Picani’s office. Shelves lined the walls, littered with plushies and figurines from various cartoons Thomas had enjoyed over the years. The collection had only grown since the last time Deceit had been here numerous years ago, and if it were anywhere but the imagination the shelves would be in danger of collapsing under all the weight.

Deceit didn’t spare the comfortable looking sofa or luscious green plants that dotted the space more than a glance, crossing straight over to Picani’s office.

The man blinked up at Deceit from behind his desk when he entered, his expression of surprise almost immediately falling away to a welcoming smile as he stood up and attempted to herd Deceit into an armchair. His mouth was moving, probably babbling some nonsense about cartoons, but he was talking far too fast for Deceit to attempt to lipread even if he wanted to.

Deceit crossed his arms and kept standing, though even that didn’t stop Picani beaming, the doctor simply accepted Deceit’s non-compliance and perched himself on the edge of his desk so they were around eye level with one another.

Picani’s attitude was repulsive. He made Deceit’s lip want to curl into a sneer, his tongue desperate to spit some poisonous rhetoric to make the man act like any sane person was _supposed_ to respond to his presence. Fear. Disgust. Mistrust. Not acting like he was pleased to see him, for god’s sake. The figment was clearly broken.

Deceit was half tempted to fix the doctor himself. Roman’s realm might not have been as overtly deadly as Remus’, but that didn’t mean there weren’t dangers. If Picani one day decided to go for a wander in the woods, without the ability to tell the difference between friend and monster he could easily end up getting destroyed.

But, no. As always, Deceit came to the same conclusion. He couldn’t do that, if only for the fact that if he gave Picani the ability to recognise monsters, the doctor would certainly not be willing to help Deceit any more.

Picani opened his mouth to speak once more, but Deceit held up a gloved hand to stop him. Now came the tricky part. Though Deceit didn’t have nearly enough control over the imagination to create like Roman and Remus could, he’d gotten quite good at influencing – nudging their creations to temporarily fit with his own needs. It was all about belief, and Deceit was all about believing things that weren’t true. Concentrating, Deceit gathered up his imaginative power, looked directly into Picani’s eyes, and pushed.

‘You are a doctor, and doctors know everything about all medical issues.’ Deceit felt the words in his throat rather than heard them. Slowly, so as not to break the hypnotic spell over Picani, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his shattered hearing aids, holding them out in his open palm. ‘That includes audiology. You are capable of making new hearing aids to replace these, and that is what you are going to do now.’

‘I am going to make new hearing aids,’ Deceit read on Picani’s lips, the doctors speech now slowed and his face slack.

‘They will be ready in half an hour,’ Deceit intoned and the doctor nodded in agreement.

In this respect it was convenient that Thomas knew absolutely nothing about the process by which hearing aids were made. It meant if Deceit believed hard enough that it would only take half an hour, the imagination was willing to accommodate him. He didn’t need to know how it happened, as long as the process had enough logic to it to be believable – hence why he needed the doctor to make them, and not just any random figment.

Deceit broke eye contact with Picani and after a split second the man visibly shook himself, his usual open smile returning to his face.

‘Well, I’d better get hippity-hoppiting then,’ Picani said, carefully taking the broken hearing aids from Deceit.

The doctor had obviously regulated the speed of his speech and was enunciating clearer, making sure to keep facing Deceit as he talked. Something squirmed in Deceit’s stomach, whether anger at the pity Pikani _clearly_ felt towards him ~~(though the doctors expression was the same as before he’d known and he was giving no other indication of pitying Deceit)~~ or (heaven-forbid) _gratefulness_ for his simple adjustment, ~~(or perhaps spite that none of the others ever bothered to make life easier for him like that which was beyond stupid because none of the others even~~ _ ~~knew~~_ ~~)~~ , Deceit didn’t care to try and figure out, instead pressing the unknown feeling down and away as always.

‘Would you like a different colour this time?’ asked Picani.

Unbidden, Deceit’s mind brought forward an image of the glinting yellow topaz in his new dagger. It was a rather fetching colour if he didn’t say so himself…

Deceit rolled his eyes at himself. _Don’t be ridiculous_. The whole _point_ was subtlety, and everyone knew bright fucking yellow was _perfect_ for _that_.

‘No, leave it skin tone.’

Picani’s eyes, with that surprising spark of intelligence behind them, were tracking Deceit’s face attentively.

‘I’d be happy to make you two pairs, you know. If you wanted one pair of plain and another of something brighter?’

Deceit hesitated. Now that was a thought. _It could hardly hurt, right, to have two pairs?_ If anything, after what had happened to the last ones, it was even sensible. He could have one pair for when he was around the others, and another pair for when he was alone but still needed to hear properly. It just made sense.

‘Oh, go on then, I suppose,’ Deceit drawled nonchalantly, even as his heart started beating slightly faster with barely repressed excitement. ‘You’ve convinced me.’

Not five minutes later, Deceit was walking back through the market whilst Picani worked on his two pairs of hearing aids. In merely half an hour he’d be able to hear again, and the relief Deceit felt was so palpable he could taste it. It tasted sweet, of something _finally_ going right in his life, of things _finally_ getting back on track.

He firmly ignore the niggling little voice in the back of his mind that told him it wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – last. Happiness never did for the villain of the story.

***

Roman was getting a headache. It was very unprincelike but nonetheless the case. He’d been trying to subtly massage his temple every time the Dragon Witch turned her head away from him for the last twenty minutes, but so far it wasn’t helping. And judging by the concerned looks she’d started shooting him, she’d noticed his actions anyway.

Currently, the two of them were stood side by side staring down at the eleventh large-pit-filled-with-spikes of the night. Or, well, it was quite far into morning now – but they’d been up searching all night so the sentence still stood.

‘This is getting beyond ridiculous!’ Roman exclaimed, ripping his brothers drawing from its place attached to the singular above-ground spike just like he’d done at every other pit. This one was no different to the rest, depicting Remus hitting him over the head with his Morningstar, blood spurting everywhere, and a speech bubble coming out of his brothers mouth asking ‘Do you like your present?’.

_No I definitely do not like your bloody presents!_ Roman wanted to scream to the sky, but that would probably only serve to encourage Remus further, which he definitely didn’t need. His brother was only getting bolder all the time. These latest so-called presents weren’t even in the no-mans land between their realms, but just barely over the border of Roman’s land outright. This couldn’t go on. Just the thought of the shame he’d feel if he had to tell the others he couldn’t even control his own brother anymore had Roman shuddering.

The Dragon Witch sighed and examined her pointed nails. ‘There’s hardly any point me shifting back to human every time if we’re just going to keep finding more a hundred yards along.’

‘I really thought that was going to be the last one. I mean, _come on_! That was the tenth! Everyone knows you stop at ten!’ Roman felt the inexplicable urge to rip his own hair out.

‘Somehow I don’t think your brother cares what “everyone knows”.’

Roman groaned. ‘I’ve noticed.’ He steeled himself for yet another hour of spike removal and helping the Dragon Witch fill in the hole to the best of his abilities (she’d been doing most of the dirt-shifting considering her vastly superior size in dragon form). ‘Let’s get on with-’

‘Prince Roman!’ A sharp squark interrupted him from above and a magpie flew down to land a few feet away, jittering nervously.

Roman knelt down so he’d hopefully appear less imposing to the small creature. ‘Are you quite alright citizen?’ He asked in what he hoped was a soothing voice.

The magpie shook its head. ‘No your highness. It’s the bunnies – the sky bunnies by the portal. It’s…’ The bird wailed, ‘Oh, it’s so horrible!’

‘It’s going to be alright,’ Roman said, wishing he could convince himself of the same thing as dread settled into his bones. ‘Just tell me what you saw.’

‘They’re… they’re dead!’ the magpie choked out.

_What?!_ Roman’s brain screamed. _How did this happen?_ ~~(How could he~~ _ ~~let~~_ ~~this happen?)~~

‘Do you know anything else?’

It bobbed its head miserably. ‘We think it was an intruder your majesty. Something was stolen from a nearby village. And near the – the b-b-bodies, in the clouds, there was a – a _snake_.’

‘ _Deceit_ ,’ Roman seethed. He took a slow breath in and out to calm himself before continuing. ‘Thank you for telling me citizen. You’ve done extraordinarily well and I’m very grateful. If you wouldn’t mind it would help immensely if you could inform as many birds as possible to be on the lookout for a man in a bowler hat and cloak with scales on the side of his face. Or really any strangers at all,’ he added. ‘The fiend may be in disguise.’

‘You should close the portal,’ the Dragon Witch put in.

Roman frowned. ‘Why would I do that? Surely it would be better if he leaves so he can’t do any more damage?’

‘If he gets away, what’s to stop him from coming back and doing it again?’ The Dragon Witch raised a sleek eyebrow. ‘If you close the portal, he’ll have to come this way – through your brother’s realm – to get out. _We_ can cut him off at the pass and make sure he can _never_ do any damage to this realm _ever_ again.’

‘I concede your point,’ Roman allowed. ‘But we’re not killing him if that’s what your insinuating.’

The Dragon Witch tutted. ‘I don’t see why not.’

‘Because murder is not only wrong but dishonourable, and _I_ am meant to be a knight.’ _Even if he hadn’t been feeling all that “knightly” as of late_.

‘I am more than happy to do the actual _murdering_ if you wanted to turn your back.’

‘ _We’re not killing him!’_ Roman screeched, then coughed, voice returning to normal. ‘I’m going to close the portal now.’

The Dragon Witch smirked, showing the glint of her oversized canines. ‘You do that.’

‘I will. I will do that.’ Roman sniffed haughtily, and began swirling his hands in the complicated motion that was effectively the magical key to the portal between his realm and the part of the mindscape the sides resided in. Golden pixie dust trailed after the intricate movements of his fingers, leaving the afterglow of shapes in the air, like sparklers on Halloween. When he was done, the glow faded, and Roman knew that far across his realm the portal had gone dark.

Closing the portal always left an uncomfortable squeezing in his chest. He didn’t like to do it. After all, what if one of the others needed him? Though, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, Roman realised it was silly. No one ever needed him.

He turned to the Dragon Witch. ‘So what now then?’

‘Now we get as many lookouts along the border as possible-’

‘Telling them to be wary of any more of my brother’s traps, of course.’

‘Of course. And then we wait.’

‘And then we wait,’ agreed Roman. It was going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there we have it! Quite a lot of setting up future stuff in this chapter - tbh a fair amount more was originally going to go down but it was getting pretty long, so you can look forward to the culmination of a lot of bits of this chapter in chapter four. Hopefully you won't have to wait as long for it! (You shouldn't since I already know what's going to happen haha). You can all blame Picani (or past-me for deciding to put him in the story during planning lol) for the delay for this chapter since I know almost nothing about cartoons and was petrified about writing his segment haha - ironic considering he barely speaks and doesn't make a single cartoon reference here but ah well what can you do.
> 
> Also, I have no idea what would be a normal time for Americans to use sparklers, since here in the UK its a bonfire night thing so I just kind of guessed with Halloween, so sorry if that's wildly inaccurate haha :p
> 
> I cannot express how much your comments mean to me, every time I need a boost I come back and re-read them all, just ahhh I love you all so much <3
> 
> (Also if anyone knows how to make the end notes from chapter one not appear at the end of the latest chapter please let me know because its bugging me to hell and back)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: "All reptiles produce tears. The fluid between the retinas and the spectacles is produced by tear glands behind the lenses. A pair of nasolacrimal ducts drain the fluid into spaces in the roof of the mouth. Because the spectacles are attached to the skin, the tears cannot overflow from their eyelids as they do in mammals." ...no reason why you might want to know that... :p
> 
> Additional warnings for this chapter: injury, mild body horror, and what may be taken as a reference to self-harm (kind of? It's Remus, but better safe than sorry). Heed the usual tags as always though too guys, and be safe.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Deceit’s stomach was nearly uncomfortably full by the time he got back to Picani’s office. He’d allowed himself to sample every food he’d come across in the market in order to make up for the previous four days of starvation – only a couple of bites of each of course, he had no intention of making himself sick – and with the wonderful mismatch of flavours still dancing on his tongue, Deceit couldn’t stop the slight pull of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Sides didn’t technically _need_ to eat, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t uncomfortable not to. Plus, if Thomas wasn’t putting a side to much use (like Deceit could feel he was currently attempting to do with himself), then not eating could contribute to a faster fading – which was definitely _not_ on Deceit’s agenda _thank you very much_.

All in all, he was glad to have food in his stomach again, but nowhere near as glad as he was when he spotted the two pairs of brand-new hearing aids sitting on Picani’s desk.

With as much dignity as he could muster (which objectively wasn’t very much), Deceit snatched up the devices. After a moment’s hesitation, he carefully concealed the yellow pair in his inside jacket pocket, before switching the other pair on and putting them in his ears as quickly as his could manage.

The sound of the world came back to life around him, and Deceit closed his eyes and breathed, simply listening.

There was a radio in the corner of the office that Deceit hadn’t noticed before, which was softly playing some soothing jazz. The buzz of the crowd in the street outside was intruding through the open window, and if he strained his ears Deceit could even just make out the heavy ticking from Picani’s old-fashioned cuckoo-clock mounted on the wall.

After several days’ worth of all-encompassing silence, it was almost overwhelming. Though, not in an entirely bad way, he supposed. The tension that drained from his shoulders as he was _finally_ able to relax just a little bit – to feel just that little bit _safer_ – was certainly a welcome sensation.

He opened his eyes to find Picani studying him with a crease between his eyebrows and an odd little twisted smile on his face. What the man was thinking, Deceit had no idea, and he felt some of the stiffness return to his spine.

‘What?’ Deceit snapped, straightening his back and schooling his face into a blank expression.

Picani’s smile became a little less tight as he huffed out a chuckle. ‘Just glad I was able to help. Though, I want you to know, if there’s ever anything you want to talk about-’

_Oh, good god no – not the return of the therapist._

‘-I’m more than happy to listen. Not to toot my own horn, but I am rather good at the old advice giving.’

‘Of course you are,’ Deceit smiled faux sweetly, just a hint of patronising colouring his tone. ‘But I don’t think that will be necessary somehow.’

‘Well you know where to find me if you change your mind. Just promise to think on this for me and I’ll say no more on the subject: “You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”’

_What the…?_ Deceit scowled. ‘Was that Winnie the Pooh?’

Picani nodded solemnly. ‘A very wise bear indeed.’

‘Oh _sure_ because I’m _totally_ going to take advice from a fictional teddy bear with a honey addiction.’ Deceit rolled his eyes. _Honestly._ ‘Right. Anyway, we’re done here.’

Deceit snapped his fingers and Picani went limp as a puppet whose strings had been cut, his eyes taking on a glassy appearance. ‘You are going to forget everything that has happened since I arrived,’ Deceit said, letting his voice turn silky smooth. ‘I was never here and we have never met.’

By the time Picani blinked back into wakefulness, Deceit was already closing the front door behind himself.

Out in the street, the figments were getting restless. The market was significantly less crowded than before, and the figments that remained hurried from place to place, keeping their heads down, rather than milling about like they had been earlier. There was a strange look in their eyes, something unnatural about it, as if it were something never meant to be felt on this side of the border. Deceit’s spine prickled as he realised what it was: haunted.

But… Roman would never do anything to upset or hurt his creations. Especially not so-called innocents like the villagers. And Deceit himself certainly hadn’t done anything bad enough to provoke such a reaction, he was sure of that at least. Even the cloud snake would have long dissipated by now.

Something was clearly wrong though – and Deceit had no intention of sticking around to find out what. It was more than time to get back to his own little corner of the mindscape.

With the much reduced crowds, the risk of death by trampling was low enough that Deceit shifted back to his small snake form. He kept to the gutters, avoiding prying, distrustful eyes as best he could when there was no rubbish to shield him (Roman’s perfect little world was far too good for littering – not that Deceit was entirely ungrateful. He did have hygiene standards to maintain after all), and slunk out of the village, disappearing back into the surrounding grassland.

The hill back up to the portal was a lot less fun to climb up than it had been to go down, especially since Deceit was starting to feel the drain the repeated shifting and use of his coercive ability on Picani was having on him. A warm blanket tucked around his shoulders, a hot chocolate, and a philosophy book or five sounded just about _heavenly_ right now, and Deceit was half way through persuading himself that he could afford to avoid visiting the basement for _one_ more day and let himself indulge in some much needed self-care instead, when he happened to glance up at the sky.

Deceit froze.

The sky was awash with red.

And not the soothing red of a sunset either. This was… was the sort of sky you’d expect to find above a raging forest fire – alive and burning and, now that Deceit looked closer, not actually red at all, but a deep, all-encompassing _orange_.

_It can’t be_. Deceit’s heart thudded out the rhythm of the words against the narrowing walls of his chest. _He can’t be here_.

It wasn’t – wasn’t _possible_. Rage had no place in the imagination, even tangentially like Deceit (or Virgil, in theory, not that the side would ever visit what with how the imagination would no doubt respond to his particular form of creative thinking). Lying took ingenuity; Rage certainly did _not_.

Just like it would with Logic or Morality, the imagination would reject Rage without Roman there to stop it – to let the side in.

_No,_ Deceit mentally berated himself. He was being ridiculous. An orange sky did _not_ mean the orange side was to blame. Was Deceit responsible every time anyone ate a lemon, or put a rubber duck in their bath, or a sunflower grew? _Clearly_ not. He was just letting his ~~fear~~ _imagination_ get the better of him.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that there were currently five bunny shaped clouds floating motionless with their necks twisted at unnatural angles, streaks of blood-orange shining through the cracks that were struck across their throats. The cloud cobra Deceit had summoned was somehow still there, curled up in a tight coil, hiding its face but appearing otherwise unharmed.

Deceit tugged on the strings of power he’d created it with and it faded away. Whatever tragedy had happened here, Deceit was _not_ going to be caught at the crime scene. No matter how _pleasant_ Roman was _sure_ to be when he found the culprit, Deceit didn’t fancy a front row seat. Or a first person perspective for that matter.

He headed straight to the portal at the crescent of the hill… _or not???_ The portal wasn’t there. _Am I having a senile moment ridiculously early in life?_ Deceit wondered. Maybe it was just a little further down the other side of the hill?

Twenty minutes later, the hill thoroughly scoured for any sign of the portal, Deceit was beginning to feel just a tad hysterical.

_How could it have moved?_ Sure, Deceit didn’t exactly make frequent trips into the imagination, but he’d been there enough times over the course of his life to know that the portal home _up and disappearing_ was not a normal occurrence.

A horrible thought struck him: _had Roman closed the portal?_

The idea was claustrophobic, despite the openness of the area around him. The creative side must have realised something was wrong – had figured out he had an intruder and tried to trap them here.

_A snake in a net_ , Deceit’s mind _oh so_ _helpfully_ supplied.

…Except that _this_ snake was no mere animal working on instinct alone – and this net had a hole in it.

Sure, it was an unpleasant, smelly, rather dangerous hole, but it was better than waiting around for Roman to track him down and attempt to try him for murder. That, or end up like the bunnies. _Something_ had killed them – something that was almost definitely still out there. The longer his mind lingered on the thought, the more his scales began to prickle – just as they would if someone were watching him.

It was _definitely_ time to leave.

Steeling himself for a rather more taxing trip home than he’d been hoping for, Deceit began the arduous journey to the border of Remus’ realm.

***

Remus had his entire fist shoved in his mouth, sharp teeth biting into his flesh hard enough that the tangy taste of metal was swirling between his gums. Giggles kept bubbling up in his chest like boiled leeches in a stew but he couldn’t let them out or they’d hear him and if they heard him they’d find him and if they found him he’d have lost the game and then the game would be over and they’d make him go home and he didn’t want to go home because he was having so much _fun._

Fun fun fun fun fun fun fuuuuun FINALLY some _fun!_

He’d been so _bored_ waiting for Diddle-Dee-Dumb (and he hadn’t even gotten to tell him his new nickname Remus hadn’t seen him in so long) to come out of his room and play with him. He hadn’t even come out to play “who can shout and/or scream the loudest” when Remus had redecorated the common area yesterday and he _always_ did normally.

It’d been annoying and boring and stupid and Remus’ brain had started to tell him to try and find out how many sharp things he could stick in his own chest before he bled to death and he was starting to forget exactly why Dee said he _shouldn’t_ do that – but, but then his brand new friend had shown up and then Remus didn’t even need Sir Stupid Snake any more because he had someone who actually _wanted to play with him!!!_

Because Orangey – Remus hadn’t gotten a name or a role or anything off his new friend but that didn’t matter anyway because nicknames were _so_ much better and once they’d hung out more he’d totally find stuff to give him nicknames about and maybe he could give Remus a nickname in return and that’d be _awesome_ because no one had given Remus a nickname in _foreverrrr_ because he’d only really gotten to talk to Dee much recently and Dee was a poo who didn’t bother making them up which was especially stupid when R-2-Dee-Poo made everyone use nicknames for _him_ (or use his role but it wasn’t like Remus would go around calling him “Deceit” yughk that’d be so boring) because no one knew his name… not that Remus _wouldn’t_ use nicknames for him if he _did_ know his name…

Remus’ thoughts were falling out of his ears again. He poked the gooeyness back into his ear hole with his spare finger then wiped the excess brain matter off on his pants.

Anyway, Orangey had thought the collection of weapons Remus had lying all over his bedroom was _super actually cool_ and had been all grin-y instead of scared-y or uninterested-y like Virge and Dee had been when he’d tried to show his stuff off to them.

And _then_ his new awesomest friend had said they should go to the imagination and try some of the weapons out and no one _ever_ wanted to go to Remus’ bit of the imagination because they all thought stupid Ro’s side was better or something – or they said his side was “dangerous” as if he’d ever let them get eaten enough to _die_.

So Remus let Orangey into the imagination and took him to the sinking-screaming swamp and the two of them had hacked and slashed and torn and whacked and ripped and bitten (Remus may have been the only one doing that last thing) apart a whole _army_ of living scarecrows and with someone fighting at his back on the same team for the first time in years and years, Remus could almost mistake the flashes of orange in the corner of his vision for flashes of red and it was almost just like it’d been for the short time between when The King had split and when the others – especially goody-two-dicks _Morality_ – had gotten so horrified of Remus and the things he told Thomas to say and do that Dee had come to take him away to live in the dark.

When they were done and the scarecrows were just piles of straw quickly being absorbed by the swamp, Remus finally noticed his new friend had wandered off somewhere in the middle of it all. So maybe Orangey was a bit of a dum-dum but he had a weapon and seemed to know how to fight and Remus would probably hear him screaming if he got into trouble anyway so he’d probably not be turned into a puddle of blood but it did mean Remus couldn’t take him volcano-diving like he’d wanted to which kinda sucked…

Though it wasn’t like he couldn’t occupy himself until Orangey showed up again. It’d been _days_ since he’d left his brother any presents – he’d have to do something extra special to make up for it. And some weird powerful feeling under his ribcage told him that trespassing on Ro’s territory for a short while wouldn’t sting him nearly as bad as it usually did.

And all that led to now – Remus sitting about a hundred yards away, camouflaged in a tree in no man’s land, chewing on his fist and watching his twin get more and more frustrated at the collection of modified trou de loup’s Remus had made for him. Ro’s face kept getting all twisty and it was so funny when it took him all night and all morning to dismantle the traps and Remus knew they’d only found about half of them and there was even a great bit when the Dragon Witch had shoved a load of dirt in one of the holes when Ro was still in it and he’d nearly been buried alive and Remus had fallen out of his tree he’d been shaking so much from keeping his laughter in.

Remus was just thinking that Roman would _have_ to make him a present in return _this_ time when there was some kind of commotion that made Ro run over to the left to one of the spike-holes he hadn’t found yet, except he’d definitely found it now because he was standing on the edge and there was a whole lot of shouting happening but Remus was to far away to make out what they were saying.

But – but then Roman was carefully climbing into the hole and emerging less than a minute later with a writhing, slightly bloody, only-just-recognisable-as-yellow snake in his arms.

Remus froze, almost biting his hand off as the grin slipped from his face.

Because that wasn’t just any old yellow snake. He _knew_ that yellow snake.

But before he could do anything – scream or charge or summon a herd of Rhinoppotomus to trample his brother into dust so he’d have to let the snake go - the Dragon Witch was turning into her dragon form and Roman was climbing on board with the snake and they were flying off deeper into Roman’s realm where the portal to the light sides part of the mind palace was and –

And No _. No_. Roman had _everything_ – he couldn’t have this too. Dee-Dee belonged to _Remus_.

This wasn’t fun anymore.

Remus had to get him back.

***

Deceit had _almost_ made it to no man’s land – in spite of the overabundance of guards Roman had stationed everywhere – when it happened.

One second he’d been slithering along quite… well, certainly not “happily” after he’d been forced to bathe in a muddy puddle to camouflage himself, but “begrudgingly” would suffice – and the next the ground was collapsing underneath him and he was falling.

Desperately he flailed, trying to twist and latch onto something, but there was only open air until –

If snakes could scream, Deceit’s vocal cords would be in tatters.

Red hot pain sliced through his side as he collided with something sharp and jagged, felt it tear at his scales and break through his flesh like a knife stabbing open a can of tomatoes.

He hit the ground with a thump, and the redness that spilled out around him was anything but fruit.

The world blurred behind the tears his glands were producing on reflex, the salty liquid getting trapped by his lenses and draining into his mouth, making him choke.

Deceit’s mind was drowning in a thick murky fog, spikes of agony that erupted like geysers the only sensation clear to him as he tried to grasp hold of a thought for long enough to figure out _what the hell_ was happening.

There was cold earth underneath him, he knew that – and more earth rising up on all sides of him, blocking out the comforting heat of the sun’s rays and trapping him… no, _burying_ him…

Yes, that had to be it – any second now a shovel would descend from above and the soil would begin pilling on top of him, burying him just like he’d buried the others – Rage and Apathy, Creativity and Anxiety, all entombed in the dark corners of Thomas’ mind where their host would never find them – and _god_ did the irony taste sweet on his tongue.

Distantly, Deceit realised he was losing… _something?_ Himself? Track of reality? Everything around him was spinning, around and around and around, he was almost floating…

_Blood loss!_ A stray coherent thought shrieked from within him – from the part of him that embodied so much of Thomas’ self-preservation – so loud that it cut through the fogginess and forcefully _yanked_ him back to his body.

He gasped as well as his snake form could, gulping down air as the pain sliced through him again in full force – but at least he could _think_.

He had to change back – he’d be fine if he _just changed back_.

He tried to concentrate on the strings of power that held his form together, to manipulate them like a puppet master – twist them back into his human shape – but every time he grasped at one it would slip away from him like the strand of a spiderweb on the wind.

_At least Virgil would appreciate the simile,_ Deceit thought, and it almost made him smile.

…except that Virgil wasn’t there. No one was there. It was just Deceit, bleeding out in some stupid hole in some stupid corner of the blasted imagination, and he _refused_ to die here when all he had to do to save himself was get his act together and _fucking shift back_.

_There!_ That tingling sensation. He shifted his thoughts inward, chasing the feeling. _Almost… almost…_

‘Fucking – shit!’

A voice shattered Deceit’s concentration, snapping his focus back to the world around him. A red and white figure was rushing him, and Deceit hissed, barring his needle-like teeth, before he realised who it was.

Roman – _of course_. The one who never could leave well enough alone. And he just _had_ to show up right when Deceit had been about to _fix this. Perfect_ timing as always, _damn him._

The creative side grabbed him before Deceit could even think of trying to run away, and for one horrible moment as white hot pain burst through his body all over again Deceit’s mind got caught on the thought that _this was it –_ that Roman was going to wring his neck and be done with him and _this was the end and what the hell was Thomas going to do without him because, even if he didn’t know it, their host_ needed _him_ –

It took Deceit a few seconds to calm down enough to realise he was being cradled against Roman’s chest by a hand gentle enough not to hurt, but steady enough that it didn’t feel like he was going to be dropped.

It wasn’t… _entirely_ unpleasant.

He wasn’t naïve enough to think he was _safe_ , but maybe he was safe _enough_ – just for the moment – to give into the pull of unconsciousness that threatened to drag him under as the adrenaline faded away…

Deceit let himself sink.

.

.

.

‘…do with him?’

‘You should return him to where you found him. The ecosystem - ’

‘This isn’t a nature documentary, _Logan-Attenborough_. He’s clearly a spy for Deceit – not some poor, defenceless creature that needs rehabilitating back into the wild.’

‘Why bring him back here then?’

A splutter. ‘Well… he – he’d gotten himself half-impaled on… What I _meant_ to say is… he was seriously injured and a prince doesn’t just leave someone to _die_ – even if they _are_ probably evil.’

A light hum was Logic’s only response as cool, precise fingers finished tying what Deceit presumed was a bandage around his side and pulled away.

Deceit kept absolutely still and took stock of his body and – more importantly – his surroundings.

The pain was greatly reduced, but in its place was a… woozy sensation Deceit did _not_ particularly appreciate. His side felt uncomfortably tight, and he was _so_ looking forward to finding out how much _better_ it was sure to feel when he moved.

Currently, he was lying on the couch in the light side’s living room, a towel stained rather red – an observation he was not going to linger on since he was still hoping to retain his earlier meal – underneath him. Logic was crouched on the floor nearby, tidying up a half-empty first aid kit, whilst Roman hovered over him, keeping a tense grip on the handle of his sheathed sword. They appeared to be the only two in the room, but Deceit wasn’t hopeful that would last.

‘So are you going to summon a tank for him?’ Logic asked casually, _as if that was the kind of thing that could be said casually._

Deceit would poison the lot of them ~~with venom he didn’t even have~~ before he let them _put him in a cage._

‘What?’ Luckily Roman sounded vaguely disgusted by the idea – Deceit had known the side had to have _some_ redeeming characteristics.

‘Well since you don’t want to let him go, and we can hardly leave a snake you suspect is a spy to roam around the mind palace, a tank seems like the most logical solution.’

_Okay_ , Deceit took it back – “light” creativity was actually considering it; he didn’t have any redeeming qualities after all.

‘Or…’ Roman tapped his chin. ‘What if we just slipped him through the door to the dark sides and shut it behind him?’

_Yes_ , Deceit mentally agreed, _that is_ clearly _the best solution._

‘Who’s slipping what to the dark sides?’ A familiar voice, laced with an ever-so-slight echo, cut in.

Virgil was really starting to make a habit of walking in when Deceit least wanted him to.

There was no chance the former dark side wouldn’t recognise Deceit’s snake form – he’d seen it far too many times over the years. Deceit decided to cut to the chase.

The shift strained, but worked (thank _god_ ) and then Deceit was sitting on the couch, fully dressed in his complete formal outfit – cloak, hat and all – limbs returned to him and the phantom ache of a wound that wasn’t even there, now he was inhabiting his human body, in his side. The wooziness quadrupled, and Deceit was thankful he was already sitting down or he was sure he’d have collapsed.

‘What the - ’ Roman grasped for his sword, but in the process stumbled back into Logic, knocking the two of them to the floor.

‘Are you – are you _fucking_ serious?’ Virgil yelled, the ever-so-slight echo becoming full on warping, as he stormed up to Deceit, planting himself between his “friends” and the big bad dark side, his glare turned up to eleven. ‘You broke in _again?’_

Deceit was _so_ in the mood to deal with Virgil and his paranoid accusations. ‘ _Please_ Virgil,’ he purred, and tried to decide if he could face standing up so they’d be at eye level, ‘as if _I’d_ be base enough to _break_ anything to get in here when I can slip in just as easily without resorting to property damage whenever I like.’

‘Oh, so, property damage is going too far, but _murder_ is fine?’ put in Roman, getting back to his feet and coming to stand next to Virgil, the two of them presenting a united front. Logic hung back, straightening his tie but otherwise making no move to get involved, simply watching the scene with those cold, calculating eyes of his.

‘Murder?’ Virgil’s gaze shot to Roman, then back to Deceit.

Roman waved his hand. ‘I created some cloud-bunnies some time ago in the imagination, and earlier they were found mysteriously murdered just when _he_ happens to be skulking around.’

_Of course – Deceit was_ obviously _the bad guy_. “Wrong place, wrong time” was a _totally_ made up concept that _definitely_ didn’t apply here.

‘I _knew_ it,’ Virgil seethed. The side’s hands were tucked up hidden in his hoodie sleeves, but Deceit would bet anything they were shaking. ‘I _knew_ you couldn’t be trusted. You go and do this even after I helped you the other day?’ Something shifted in Virgil’s expression, a look of betrayal taking over his features. ‘Was it all – was it just a set up to try and make me… what? Feel sorry for you? Think you weren’t a threat? Were you actually laughing at me the whole time?’

Out of the corner of his eye, Deceit caught Roman’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. So, Virgil hadn’t told them what had happened then. Now that was an unexpected act of loyalty…

…not that it mattered anymore. Deceit was a liar, sure, but it made something coil up tight in his chest to know that Virgil really thought he’d be capable of all he was accusing him of. He swore he could _feel_ any remaining dregs of loyalty to their once-friendship Virgil felt drying up and leaving him hollowed out from the inside.

_Sure Virgil, I beat_ myself _up and then fancied partaking in a bit of animal cruelty just for fun_ , he longed to snap back. It wouldn’t help – would only reveal further details to Roman and Logic about his moment of weakness that he didn’t need them knowing about.

‘Were you actually working _with_ \- ’

Deceit flicked his wrist and Virgil’s hand flew up to slam against his mouth. His eyes bore into Virgil’s. He would _not_ allow him to utter that name here. Not this close to Thomas’ consciousness. _That side_ did _not_ need the kind of power the simple act of acknowledgment would grant him.

It took Deceit several seconds to realise he’d stood up, and several seconds longer to realise he was trembling with the exertion of it. If he tried to use any of his abilities again before he’d had a proper rest to let them recharge, Deceit had no doubt he would end up fainting. Which wouldn’t be humiliating _at all._ He wrapped his hands up in his cloak, gripping the hilt of his dagger when its cool metal brushed against his skin. He was _not_ helpless.

‘Release him this instant you fiend,’ Roman demanded, pointing his sword at Deceit’s chest.

Virgil’s eyeshadow was getting darker, the movement of his chest growing more rapid. If Deceit wanted to, he could keep Virgil’s hand pressed against his mouth until the side was dragged into a full blown panic attack.

Deceit let him go.

Virgil retreated a few steps towards Logic, hunching over slightly and taking measured breaths until his eyeshadow returned to a more normal level. He didn’t take his eyes off Deceit, even when Logic placed a firm, if rather awkward, hand on his shoulder.

Deceit didn’t catch whatever it was he said under his breath, but he was well practiced enough to be able to read ‘bastard’ on anyone’s lips, _especially_ Virgil’s. He forced a smile. ‘Indeed.’

The sword aimed at him had dropped a little but was still rather uncomfortably within stabbing range. ‘So, are we planning on standing here for the rest of eternity, or can I go back to my part of the mindscape now?’

Virgil scowled and opened his mouth, but Logic beat him to it. ‘I think that would be for the best. Assuming no injuries transferred to your human body that you need me to treat?’

The question caught Deceit off guard. He assumed the logical side had only treated him before because he hadn’t known who or what he truly was. _Why did Logic still care now?_ ‘No. I appreciate the offer though,’ he drawled, ~~and couldn’t even tell if it was a lie or not~~.

Logic nodded. ‘Very well. Then I shall accompany you to the doorway - ’

‘Hold on a hot minute,’ interrupted Roman. ‘We can’t just let him go! What about justice for my bunnies?’ He waved his sword dramatically and Deceit did _not_ flinch half a step backwards.

‘Roman’s right. He’s dangerous. He proved that today.’

Deceit rolled his eyes exasperatedly at Virgil. ‘Yes, because out of the two of us _I’m_ the one with _fight_ or flight as a function. Oh wait, no I’m not, that’s you.’

‘I _protect_ Thomas.’

‘Right, and _I_ spend my days plotting his downfall, is that what you want to hear?’

Roman scoffed. ‘I think we gathered _that_ when you were wreaking havoc in the imagination.’

Deceit turned his poisonous smile on The Prince. ‘You know Roman, I really must commend you for figuring out who killed the bunnies so fast. _Especially_ since I had absolutely zero motivation to do so, and you had presumedly no witnesses of the event who claimed that I was the culprit.’

‘…thank you?’

_Honestly_ , Deceit was certain the twins shared a single brain cell sometimes. A very small brain cell at that.

Logic coughed. ‘I believe what Deceit is trying to say is that he is not to blame for the rabbits’ demise.’

Ah, so it was _Logic_ who was holding the lion’s share of the brain cells captive. Along with Deceit himself, of course.

‘Riiiight,’ Roman laughed fakely. ‘I knew that.’

‘Just because he said it doesn’t mean it’s true!’ Virgil said, throwing his hands in the air. ‘He is _literally_ Deceit.’

This was really getting on Deceit’s nerves now. Once upon a time Virgil had found his lies funny, more often than not. Or comforting. Or whatever other response Deceit used them to elicit. _Things change_ , he reminded himself bitterly.

‘And _you_ are “literally” anxiety. Do you wish for everyone to dismiss everything _you_ say as simply paranoia?’

‘He does _kind of_ have a point,’ Roman said out of the corner of his mouth. Virgil glared and The Prince quickly tacked on, ‘Not that I’m taking his side!’

‘Alright,’ Virgil said lowly, stalking up to Deceit and jabbing a finger into his chest. ‘If I really am just paranoid, what _were_ you doing sneaking around the imagination earlier?’

‘Well - ’ Deceit didn’t get to finish his lie (because _obviously_ it was going to be a lie – he could hardly tell them the truth; that he was “defective” as Rage had put it… or had that been his dream? Either way, they didn’t need another reason to want to lock him up, not when half of them were apparently already keen on the idea – or at least that’s what he assumed Virgil and Roman were suggesting they do with him).

An almighty BOOM rocked the mind palace.

Four heads swivelled in the direction of the explosion – towards the entrance to the dark sides.

‘What in the blazes…?’ uttered Roman.

And then a screaming green and black moustache-bearing blur launched itself through the doorway.

‘Oh shit,’ Virgil swore, hastily backing away into a corner.

_My sentiments exactly_ , agreed Deceit internally.

Remus barrelled straight into Roman, still screaming, and sent the both of them colliding into the couch, which toppled over against the force of their bodies. They rolled and Remus ended up on top, pinning his brother by pressing his knees into the other’s chest, face contorted into a manic Cheshire grin.

‘R-Remus?’ stuttered Roman, bewildered.

Remus’ screams dissolved into hiccupping giggles and a large dead silver fish appeared in his hand. ‘Hello _brother_.’

The fish slammed down onto Roman’s cheek, and his head snapped to the side. ‘Ow! That hurt!’ The Prince yelled, indignant.

Remus’ head bobbed. ‘It was meant to.’

Roman lunged for the fish and the two of them wrestled, grappling for control of the… “weapon”, Roman’s hand ending up smooshed against Remus’ face. He quickly removed it when Remus blew a wet raspberry against his palm.

‘You! Are! Disgusting!’ Roman panted out.

‘I know!’ Remus agreed.

Deceit watched with a raised eyebrow as Remus tried to shove the fish head first into his brother’s mouth. He knew he should _probably_ try to stop them…

‘I haven’t missed this,’ Logic sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

…but anything that annoyed Logic _was_ automatically at least a little bit amusing.

That was, until he caught sight of the skin on the back of Remus’ hands. Deceit froze.

It was _bubbling_.

_Shit – Remus wasn’t meant to be here_. Thomas didn’t know about him, and Deceit’s _own_ _defence mechanisms_ to stop the repressed sides from revealing themselves whenever they liked were being activated. He’d be _boiled alive_.

How the hell dark creativity had gotten this far into the light side’s part of the mindscape without being driven back by pain, he had no idea. It shouldn’t have been possible – Remus simply didn’t possess that much power.

~~Did he?~~

Deceit wasn’t the only one who’d noticed what was happening to The Duke.

‘Stop it!’ Virgil yelled, voice echoing dangerously, as he stormed over to the twins and tore the fish away from them, throwing it into a corner. He gestured to Remus. ‘ _Look_ at what is happening to him.’

Remus sat back on his heels – allowing a red-faced Roman to clamber to his feet – and stared at his hands in mesmerized wonder. His flesh writhed.

A horrified expression crossed Roman’s face and he made an aborted movement towards his brother. ‘What- what do we do?’

Virgil clutched at his hair, knuckles white. ‘He needs to leave. _Now_.’

Remus’ head snapped up, face only then sinking in dismay. ‘What? No, no, no – I only just - ’

‘Yes,’ Deceit stepped in firmly. ‘Virgil’s right. It’s time to go home.’

‘But he - ’ Remus pointed an accusing finger at his brother, voice dipping into a growl, ‘-he _stole_ you, Dee-Dee. I’m _rescuing_ you.’

Deceit felt oddly warm for a moment – _probably just a side-effect of exhaustion and blood loss,_ he reasoned and shook the sensation off, focusing on Remus.

‘Yes, and you’ve done a wonderful job of it. But - ’

‘But the quest isn’t complete until you return your damsel home safely,’ finished Roman.

_Damsel my arse_ , thought Deceit, shooting Roman a quick glare before returning to his neutral expression for Remus.

‘I suppose so…’ Remus still looked morose, but let himself be pulled to his feet by Deceit’s hand on his arm.

‘You two stay here and attempt to calm yourselves down,’ Logic directed at Roman and Virgil, shaking his head when Virgil tried to protest. ‘I will see them to the door.’

Deceit only glanced away from Remus for a moment to acknowledge Logic’s statement, but when he turned back, the side had his “I’ve got an idea that you’re not going to like” face on.

‘No -’

Deceit didn’t know why he bothered.

Before he could stop him, Remus had grabbed Deceit and flung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Just in time, Deceit grabbed his hat and held it pined to his head to stop it from falling off.

Remus cackled maniacally and set off at a sprint, leaving Logic to half speed-walk, half jog after them.

‘Butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt-butt…’ Remus repeated under his breath all the way to the door…

…Well, what was left of the door. The remains of several sticks of dynamite surrounded the hole which _used_ to be the door separating the dark and light sides.

Remus dropped him unceremoniously once they crossed the threshold, screamed ‘Butthole!’ directly into his face, and ran off down the stairs. At least _he_ didn’t seem affected by his ordeal. That was… _probably_ a good thing.

Logic caught up quickly, and frowned at the lack-of-a-door between them. ‘I’ll have to go back and get Roman to fix this.’

Deceit huffed out an amused breath through his nose. ‘Actually, I believe you’ll find that repression is my job.’ Holding his hand out flat, Deceit closed his eyes and _willed_ the door back into existence, weaving the metal into the shape he needed. When he was done, he leant back against the wall.

Well look at that – he’d been wrong. He _hadn’t_ immediately fainted upon using his powers again… his ears were just ringing, his stomach churning, and the world spinning at terminal velocity. He was perfectly _fine_.

The door was open between him and Logic, and the other side shifted his feet, as though debating with himself about something. It didn’t take him long to come to an apparent decision, clasping his hands together behind his back and looking Deceit straight in the eyes.

‘About what happened today with The Duke - ’

_Oh not this._ Deceit forced a smile, though he was afraid it came out as more of a grimace. ‘I assure you Logic, I have everything under control. It won’t happen again.’

_~~Lie.~~ _

‘Of course. But if you ever do require my assistance, my door is – figuratively – open.’

At first, Deceit thought he must have misheard him because _what???_ But Logic’s serious expression suggested otherwise.

‘ _Why?’_ Deceit couldn’t _not_ ask, incredulous.

Logic adjusted his tie, even though it was already straight. ‘I don’t subscribe to the separation between “light” and “dark” sides like the others do. I know why it exists, and I accept why you, Patton and Virgil in particular believe it necessary, but that doesn’t change the fact that we all work towards the same goal: the betterment and continued health and wellbeing of Thomas. Even if we sometimes have very different ideas about the best way to go about achieving that goal, it doesn’t mean we aren’t ultimately all on the same side. So yes, if you need my help, I will endeavour to provide it if I am able.’

_Truth._

No – it _had_ to be a lie.

~~It didn’t taste like a lie.~~

They were _enemies_.

~~Or was _that_ the lie Deceit had spun so long ago to make the separation easier on all of them, himself included?~~

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he eventually responded stiffly.

With a final exchange of nods between them, Deceit shut the door and locked it, blocking the light out and shrouding himself in a familiar darkness.

His feet descended the stairs, carrying him in the direction of his room on automatic, as he collected his thoughts.

He was fairly certain now of what had occurred at the end of his trip to the imagination: he’d simply fallen pray to one of Remus’ booby-traps. And as ~~horrifying~~ inconvenient as the experience had been, that was not what was troubling him. Because he’d still been on Roman’s territory when it happened.

And that meant that not only had Remus fought through his repression to get to the light side’s common room, but that he’d already broken past it earlier in the day to trespass on Roman’s side of the imagination. The _conscious_ side, that Thomas had full access too.

They were lucky that Thomas had been too busy for daydreaming at the time or he may have noticed what was going on. As it was, their host would likely just suffer from a few nightmares.

But the fact was that Remus had somehow grown more powerful in the last few days than he had been previously. _Something_ had changed.

Deceit’s senses pulled him to a stop in the common room, instinct alerting him to the feeling of _wrongness_ in the air.

The walls and floor were bloodstained, and a severed arm hung from the lampshade… but that was all just Remus’ version of redecorating. _That_ was normal.

No… it was… the _problem_ was that it was…

_Too hot._

‘Hello Deceit.’

Deceit’s neck _cracked_ he twisted it so fast towards the voice – a voice that shouldn’t – _couldn’t – ~~howhowhowhow~~ _be up here.

‘Welcome home,’ said Rage, and his smile had too many teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winnie-the-Pooh counts as a cartoon right? Right? ...Okay I'm pretty sure that quote is from the books but I tried folks :p
> 
> I am very glad I didn't put all this in the last chapter like I was originally intending because oh boy did that get long. But none of the characters would stop talking! Can you tell I normally favor writing scripts haha :p
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading! And thank you even more if you left a comment! I really really appreciate every single one!!!! :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The comments on the last chapter killed me haha - I feel like I need to apologise for that cliffhanger :'D
> 
> Also we hit 200 kudos on my birthday, which both was incredible timing and made me super happy - thank you so much guys! <3
> 
> I feel like if you've made it this far I can probably stop saying "heed the tags" but I'll keep it up anyway :p Hope you enjoy!

Rage was fully awake for the first time in – no, scratch that; for the first time _ever_. And it felt bone-crackingly good.

He hadn’t even known what he’d been missing – had thought those bright, loud moments, mixed up amongst his dormancy, when Thomas had been angry and he’d been angry and that’d made poor unaware Thomas even angrier and they’d just kept feeding into each other round and round until one of the other sides stepped in and pulled Thomas out of the cycle (and he’d never even thought to be mad about that before now but _fuck_ that was such _bullshit_ , they were such interfering little shits) – Rage had thought that was what it meant to be awake.

How wrong he’d been.

He’d been watching Thomas’ new video – and _fuck no_ he didn’t bother normally but they’d been a churning in his gut, an ache or a pull almost, and then he’d been sitting in front of his laptop and he was watching Deceit reveal himself to their host.

And something deep inside him had snapped.

He’d watched the video five times; had rewound to watch Deceit’s unmasking countless more. And each time the tendons running through his body coiled tighter and tighter, three thoughts repeating themselves in his mind until they were seared into his very existence:

One: the dark sides did their work from the shadows; that was the _whole fucking point_.

Two: Deceit revealing himself was unnatural, unwanted, and – most of all – _wrong_. He was an abomination, defying his nature like that – not to mention a fucking hypocrite, keeping the rest of them in the dark whilst he went galivanting around doing whatever the fuck he wanted.

Three: he needed to be stopped, sure, but more than that –

He needed to be punished.

And then Deceit had turned up, all sarcasm and composure and “better-than-though” attitude like always, and electricity had thrummed through Rage, his skin burning wondrously, his mind bombarded with all these thoughts and sensations – and when he’d made Deceit hurt, Rage wasn’t just awake, he was _alive._

The fact that Deceit was _broken_ and had been hiding it for all these years to stop the rest of them from chucking him to the wayside like last week’s trash – that was just icing on the cake. That was hilarious.

That was something Rage could use.

Obviously Rage wasn’t normally about manipulation and cunning and all that crap – he was a blunt object and more than okay with that – but maybe with this, with Deceit… the side was a fucking snake, and a tricky one at that. If Rage wanted to drag him back to the shadows and keep him there, maybe he’d have to use a few of his own tricks against him. Give him a taste of his own medicine.

The day after Rage had smashed Deceit’s ridiculous hearing devices, he left his room for the first time. The only plan he’d come up with was to find some way to make Deceit irredeemable in the other’s eyes – which wasn’t exactly going to be difficult. They did all already hate him.

It was weird being in a place that wasn’t wholly orange – wholly his. Freedom wasn’t something Rage had ever considered before now, but he was starting to think he didn’t hate it.

Of course, he didn’t end up getting far that first trip outside. Fucking Anxiety had been pottering around the dark side for some fucking reason – cleaning up or some shit, Rage didn’t know, and he definitely didn’t know _why_. Anxiety had fucked off to the light’s months ago. Did he seriously come back to – what? Do household chores?

It took every ounce of willpower Rage had to not confront Anxiety – to tell him to fuck off back to where he “belonged”. He’d watched him for a bit though, testing out the covertness he was going for. Had watched him knock tiredly on a yellow door – _Deceit’s_ door – and…

‘Look, I know you don’t want to speak to me – I’m not exactly over the moon about speaking to you either, and yet here I am. But can you just, like, at least let me know if you’re alive in there? Deceit?’

There was no response, and Rage didn’t stick around to find out what other crap Anxiety got up to.

The next day, Rage left his room again, and this time there was no Anxiety to get in his way. Instead, he ran into Dark Creativity.

Dark Creativity – or The Duke as he apparently called himself – had been holding a decapitated corpse under his arm and using it like an oversized paintbrush to smear the walls with blood. The last thing Rage was was squeamish, and it didn’t take long for him to decide he didn’t mind The Duke. He was stupid and annoying but the longer Rage spent with him the more he could feel their power levels feeding off of each other and growing. It was addictive.

He’d let The Duke show him his room – and admittedly the weapons had been pretty sick; god, what he could do with some of those – and then Rage had been hit with a stroke of genius and had suggested they test a few of them out in the imagination. The Duke had paired his morningstar with a halberd, while Rage grabbed a spiked and brutal looking flail, and the two of them had gone through the portal in The Duke’s room.

When Rage agreed to slaughter a bunch of scarecrows with The Duke, he’d thought the violence would bring back that truly alive feeling – with the electricity and the burning and the pure energy coursing through him. But it didn’t.

It was kind of satisfying, he guessed, but nothing like how he’d felt when he pinned Deceit against his door, when he punched him, when he burnt fingerprints into his face and neck – and those had only been light; imagine how it might feel to _really_ hurt him.

It’d feel good – he _knew_ it’d feel good. He wanted to find out _how_ good.

He’d left Dark Creativity to his own devices after a bit. The scarecrows lost their appeal after he got bored of imagining them with Deceit’s ugly mug.

Some chimera type creature tried to pounce on him at one point, but Rage quickly put it down, and soon enough he was emerging from a bog into what he figured had to be Light Creativity’s part of the imagination.

He’d wandered around for a long time – long enough that the day had turned to night and back again. It was only when he’d got there that he realised he couldn’t create anything – that he had no way of pinning some random act of violence on Deceit by planting evidence at a crime scene of his own making. It was annoying as all shit, but no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t make anything appear out of thin air like The Duke had done.

It was pure luck that he stumbled across the snake in the sky terrorising a bunch of rabbits. The snake belonged to Deceit, Rage could feel it, and at first he was pissed because Deceit was back in the light side _again_ , but then the opportunity presented to him clicked.

Killing the bunnies – swinging his flail and making it crash into their frail bodies whilst the snake cowered and the blood drained out of their severed necks, filling the sky with his fire – made Rage’s spine tingle in excitement. Deceit had dug his own grave by leaving a snake just hanging around waiting to be found by the lights, and Rage was going to make sure he lay in it.

Rage had almost fallen in some stupid fucking hole in the ground on his way to the portal, but eventually he made it back and settled into the dark side’s common room to wait for Deceit.

Making the other side jump in fright when he eventually showed up was just too good; the shocked and horrified look on Deceit’s face as Rage “welcomed” him home – fucking priceless.

Currently, Rage was taking in Deceit’s appearance. He didn’t look quite as put together as usual – Rage could only hope that meant the others had found out about “him” murdering those poor, sweet, innocent bunnies and punished him for it. For a start, he was pale as all fuck, and it just made his scales stand out even more than usual. _Christ_ , Rage hated his scales. They were grotesque – made him want to vomit every time he set eyes on Deceit’s face. The fact that they probably covered the rest of that side of his body… it was disgusting. He was pure vermin.

The expression didn’t last long; Deceit quickly schooled his features into something neutral, aiming a barely pleasant smile in Rage’s direction.

‘Rage,’ he greeted. ‘I’m _not at all_ surprised to see you up here.’

‘Fancied a change of scenery,’ Rage shrugged. ‘You know how that is, right?’ _Oh he fucking knew all right_ – Deceit still hadn’t moved from the bottom of the stairs. The stairs that led to the light side.

Did he think Rage was an idiot? What was it he’d said the other day when Rage’d accused him of trying to join the lights? That he was “stupid”? Fucking liar. _He_ was the stupid one. That lot wouldn’t take him in a million years – and Rage’d rather rip his own fingernails off than let Deceit get anywhere close.

‘Will you be staying long?’ asked Deceit.

Rage grinned and titled his head to the side, making sure to show off as many teeth as possible. ‘Depends if you’re going to do what I fucking tell you to do.’

There were several moments of silence, during which Deceit’s eyebrows rose further and further up his forehead. And then he burst into loud, rambunctious, _fake_ laughter.

And.

Didn’t.

Fucking.

Stop.

Rage was going to smack him one in a minute.

‘Shut up!’

It was another thirty seconds before he finally quietened, wiping at imaginary tears with his gloved fingers.

Only then did he look at Rage. Rage glowered.

‘Oh, you’re actually serious?’

It was bullshit like this that made everyone hate him. ‘You _know_ I am.’

Deceit flapped a hand at him and made his way into the kitchen. ‘I had no idea.’

Rage followed him, watched as he opened a cupboard and reached for a mug – only to momentarily freeze, frown, remove a folded piece of paper from the cupboard, slip it into his pocket, and then continue making hot chocolate as if nothing had happened. _The freak_.

When he was done, he turned to face Rage, leaning back against the counter and holding his steaming hot chocolate cupped against his chest. ‘I assume you don’t want one? Sweet doesn’t really seem like your thing – bitter, maybe. There might be some coffee lying around somewhere.’

He was taking the fucking piss.

Seething, Rage stalked right up to Deceit, getting in close and trapping him against the counter. Rage wanted Deceit to cower, to try to get away, to do anything other than stand there with his fucking mask up pretending Rage’s presence didn’t matter – that he was barely worth paying attention to. Rage would _make_ him pay attention.

Rage went to lean in close but a hand on his chest stopped him. _Him_.

‘Ah ah ah,’ Deceit tutted, giving him a condescending look. ‘We wouldn’t want me to spill my hot chocolate now. It could burn us both.’

_Yeah right_.

Rage grabbed for the drink, wrapping his hand around Deceit’s fingers to keep them clasped in place and _yanked_. The red-hot liquid sloshed over the rim, splattering both his and Deceit’s hands with burning heat.

Rage didn’t mind a little burning – would even say he was built for it.

Deceit obviously wasn’t.

The other side yelped and it sent a satisfying tingle down Rage’s spine. The mug fell to the floor with a clatter, part of it breaking off and a puddle of brown liquid forming around their feet.

‘Now are you going to fucking listen to me or what?’ growled Rage through clenched teeth.

Deceit opened his mouth, but Rage grabbed his wrist, forcing the side’s own hand up to cover his mouth and holding it there, in imitation of how he could make the others stop talking.

‘I said _listen_.’

The other side was shaking, barely noticeably but it was there – and that, _that_ … oh boy, that made Rage feel good.

‘That’s better.’ He smiled, gaze flickering between Deceit’s human eye and his snake eye. ‘Now here’s what’s going to happen: you’re gonna stop with this fucking pathetic attempt to join the light sides. They don’t want you around – especially not around Thomas. All you do is make him a bad person.’

Something flickered in Deceit’s eyes, and he reached up with his other hand to try and pull Rage off. Rage just held on tighter, pushing Deceit’s hand firmer against his mouth and imagining it suffocating him.

‘I’m _not finished_. They hate you. _Thomas_ hates you. You’re everything disgusting and vile and evil about him. Don’t you think he’d get rid of you if he knew how? Why do you think the others haven’t tried? Because deep down they “care about you”?’ he affected a mocking tone and scoffed. ‘It’s because they still think you’re useful. _Repression_ is all they want you for, so fucking stick to it. And that includes repressing yourself, since you seem to have forgotten that fact.’

Deceit scowled at him, trying to speak from under his hand. It came out muffled enough that Rage couldn’t understand the other side. Rage grabbed him by the collar and shook him until he stopped making the annoying sounds.

‘ _Shut. Up._ And – you know what? Fucking stay shut up. Cos if I catch you talking to Thomas or any of the lights again, I’ll tell all of them just how broken you really are.’ Rage flicked Deceit’s ear, finger hitting the hard plastic of his hearing aids. ‘Then we’ll see if they still think you’re useful enough to keep around.’

The sound of a door banging open, followed by out of tune humming caught Rage’s attention, and he looked over to see The Duke entering the common room, nibbling on a stick of… was that deodorant?

With one last glare, Rage stepped back from Deceit, just as Dark Creativity noticed them.

‘Orangey! Dee-Dee!’ He cried, skipping over and jumping up onto the countertop, squatting down to sit like a frog. ‘What’re we talking about?’

Rage flicked his eyes to Deceit, daring him to say anything.

‘Nothing important.’ Deceit flashed a strained smile at The Duke.

Rage stepped on his foot – _he could do better than that_.

‘Just a little argument about the merits of coffee versus hot chocolate,’ Deceit added, and pulled his foot out from underneath Rage’s.

‘Ooh, who won?’

‘I did,’ Rage cut in. _Because he fucking well had done_.

The Duke wasn’t looking at him though.

‘You’re looking kinda sick Dee,’ he commented, frowning, before perking up. ‘If you throw up, can I lick it?’

‘Sure,’ Deceit huffed. ‘But I’m fine.’

‘Oh. Well, in that case do you want to go volcano-diving?’ The Duke’s grin was hopeful.

Deceit shook his head. ‘I’ve got things to do. Maybe tomorrow.’

‘Urgh, you _always_ says that.’

A half-formed thought struck Rage. ‘I’ll go with you.’

‘Really?’ Deceit and The Duke asked simultaneously, the former incredulous, the latter’s voice brimming with excitement.

‘Why not.’

Sure, hanging around with The Duke wasn’t exactly the most thrilling thing in the world but Rage could put up with it – and something told him that making Dark Creativity like him, getting him on his side, might just end up coming in handy…

The side certainly seemed to like Deceit far to much for his own good. Rage could work on that.

The Duke whooped, jumping off the counter and wrapping himself around Rage’s arm, latching on like a lichen, and dragging him in the direction of his room.

‘Bye Dee!’ he threw over his shoulder.

Rage turned back to look at Deceit, standing in the kitchen with his arms folded under his cape. ‘See you later Deceit,’ he said flatly, narrowing his eyes. ‘Don’t forget what we talked about.’

The tightness in Deceit’s jaw told Rage he’d taken his words for the warning they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short one this time guys, but I felt like Rage's POV worked as its own thing - I promise we'll be back to Deceit's POV next chapter!
> 
> Also, good news, I have now planned out this entire fic which... phew I'll be honest took it out of me lol but we have direction and I've no intention of giving up on this even if it takes me flippin years (hopefully not lol) to write the rest cos yeah there's Quite A Lot still to come. And I'll warn you now, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Do you guys want me to tag things now to warn for them or when we get to things to avoid spoilers? Because I'm kind of torn over what to do there.
> 
> Also also, not really good news as such but I'll be unemployed after tomorrow so will theoretically have more time to write. Yippee? :'D
> 
> Kudos and comments give me life, and I'd absolutely love to hear your thoughts on the plot in particular because I'm so stressed about whether it currently makes any sense lol
> 
> Love you guys!!! <3

**Author's Note:**

> There we go then!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed - I'll aim to post chapter two this time next week.
> 
> Also I just want to say that I'm not D/deaf or hard of hearing myself, and though I'm doing my best to portray a character who is accurately, please don't hesitate to correct me if you are and you notice something's a bit wonky. I'm getting my information from my Mum (who is hard of hearing) and the internet - I'm not going to be offended if you point something out, don't worry. Though do be aware 'ableism' is in the tags for a reason, and it'll likely feature both internally and externally throughout this fic.
> 
> Comments and kudos would be very, very much appreciated as I am kinda new to this whole writing fanfiction lark (not reading though, oh boy have I read a lottt of ff). Also, if you have any ideas of things you'd like to see I'd love to read your suggestions :D


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